


Two Deaths in Every Kill

by OneShotRevolt



Category: Mortal Kombat - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kuai Liang and Tomas have fun, also a torture scene, also references to real world politics (no names- sensitivity taken into consideration), but should be on a mission, there will be violence- forwarning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 22:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 75,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7592272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneShotRevolt/pseuds/OneShotRevolt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuai Liang and Tomas Vrbada face their first mission abroad for the Lin Kuei. In a confused mix of new freedoms and old duties they struggle to hunt a target hidden in the midst of a modern world they’ve only ever caught glimpses of before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Place in the Sun

Kuai Liang watched the light crack open the horizon like a newly broken egg. It’s yolk spilled into a waiting bed of soft cloud still soaked in the shades of night. He inched the shutter up a fraction higher to see a little more of that glory. A moan grumbled from next to him. The raised shutter had splashed a bar of sunlight over his companion’s sleeping face. He sighed and tugged it back down. The grumbling ceased.

Most of the plane’s other occupants were sleeping as well. The long night flight had sent most into languid states of disarray, where half open mouths and comically aligned heads drooled and tilted respectively. In the middle of the row on the other side of the aisle, he could see a small boy kneeling on his seat, trying to drop a ball of tissue paper into the mouth of the sleeping woman next to him. The boy froze when he caught his eye. The child stared at him, then turned back to his task. Kuai Liang somehow now felt both complicit and invested in the act. The boy screwed up his face in concentration. Small pudgy fingers quivered as he slowly lowered the paper in. The woman gave a sudden snore. The boy and Kuai Liang froze, sharing a moment of suspended breath as their eyes locked again. The woman resettled and her breathing deepened. The boy let go and sat back into his chair quickly. The woman gave a stifled shriek and paddled violently in the air. She spat out the offending tissue paper, turned to the child next to her and began berating him animatedly with a wagging finger. Between the stirring limbs of disrupted passengers being rudely awakened all along the nearby rows, Kuai Liang saw the child grin at him from under his mother’s admonition.

“Something funny, Kuai?”

“What? No.” Kuai leaned back in his seat. He remembered why he had been trying to distract himself before. On the back of the airline chair in front of him was a particularly blaring advert picked out in primary colours. A family all in swimwear held hands and jumped simultaneously on a generic beach before a generic sunset; their open mouths of joy forever bombarding his head with their silent shout. He tore his eyes away.

His companion was a tough, muscled man with wispy, flyaway hair prematurely grey, and a grin to match the criminal boy opposite.

“Ah, misspent youth, how I miss it,” His companion sighed.

“I didn’t notice you outgrowing it.”

His friend punched him on the arm. Kuai ground his teeth and turned away. He nudged the window shutter wide open and watched the clouds sift to mulled golds and flaming oranges under the bright eye of the sun.

“Come on... you can’t be grouchy forever. China is miles behind us. It’s just me and you now. The world is ours for the taking!”

Kuai shrugged off his friend’s hand from where it had settled on his shoulder.

“China may be miles behind us, but the Lin Kuei are always with us. We cannot afford to mess this up, Tomas. They will expect perfection from us. We must not disappoint.”

His companion sat back with a loud exhale of air, finally giving up on his jovial spirit,

“We’ll get the job done. Stop worrying. Worrying never made anything go smoother. And stop saying the clan name. Half the people on this flight can understand you, by the way. Ungh, are you like this before all your solo missions too?”

Kuai Liang turned away from the dawn to glower over his shoulder at Tomas.

“This is nothing like other _solo missions_ , Tomas. Why can’t you take anything seriously? This is a full scale investigation – it might take weeks to close this off. And all the while they’ll be judging us, assessing us-”

“Just like normal. A little bigger, a little longer... but otherwise just like normal.”

Kuai Liang glanced away. A play of light cast his own reflection at a strange angle in the window. His looked tired from the sleepless night; a look not improved by a young scar that slit through his left eye.

“Bi-Han will be assessing us.”

“What? Really?” His companion sounded fully awake for the first time. “How do you know?”

“He as good as told me.”

“Shit.”

An old Chinese woman tutted on the other side of Tomas.

“You’d swear too if you knew what I know!” He quipped at her,

“Leave her be, Tomas.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before? I’d have packed my no-nonsense face.”

Kuai frowned at him,

“I still can’t tell if you’re taking this seriously.”

“Nothing gets more serious than Sub-fucking-Zero.”

The old woman tutted again.

“Stop swearing.” Kuai balled his fist on his knee, “And stop... irritating me! Just let me watch this fucking sunrise!”

“ _Really!_ Young men today!” The old woman got up and tottered her way to the toilet cubicle.

“Now you’ve upset the bábuška, Kuai. Day one: dear big brother, I swore at an old lady and she tried to flush the memory of my rudeness down a toilet-”

“I’ll flush the memory of you forty thousand feet out this window if you don’t shut up.”

A peaceful moment returned at that. It lasted until Kuai’s eyes wandered for the hundredth time back to the happy smiling family screaming at him from the advert on the back of the chair. As his mind screamed back at them. Tomas’ butted in again,

“Hey, maybe Bi-Han will cut us some slack... cut a few corners, put some things in a good light. For an old friend and his own little broth-”

“He will not _cut us some slack._ He will expect perfection. I told you I don’t want to talk about this any more! This place is driving me crazy! How much longer do we have to stay on this ridiculous machine!”

He saw a few faces in the row in front turn to glance at his raised voice.

“Woah there, my friend. Someone needs to _chill_.”

Kuai swung a punch full force towards his friend’s head. Tomas caught the punch with both hands and held it with difficulty.

“Sorry,” Tomas gave a grin that did bear some resemblance to apology, “I couldn’t resist. But seriously, you need to calm down and stop getting so anxious about this. We’re another hour off Belgrade and your going to freeze the engines if you keep going this way. Just... try and meditate.”

“I can’t _meditate_ with those _faces_ looking at me!”

Kuai looked at the sticker on the back of the chair. It was framed by his taught, strained hand as he indicated at it in exasperation. Tomas reached into his satchel and pulled out a thin tunic. He draped it over the back of the chair so that it hid the advert, then turned on his side and closed his eyes. Kuai steadied his breathing and acknowledged his own foolishness to himself. He needed to be more levelled headed about this. The confines of the plane, a form of transport he had never used before, were fraying at nerves that should be steel by now. He settled back down and started to steady his breathing into a meditative pattern. The tunic set right in front of him had the perfect circle and triangle of the Lin Kuei embroidered in silver upon it. Kuai’s jaw set rigid and he spent the next hour dreading that he might fall short of everything that emblem represented.


	2. Touchdown

They touched down early morning and sifted through the files of people clodding the airport walkways. Kuai could feel the heat rising already. The air was preparing for a hot summer day. The jostling crowds and murmurs of warmth made his neck crawl.

“Can you look a little less like an assassin-for-hire, please. You’re scaring the common rabble.”

Kuai turned angrily to Tomas, but realised his colleague did have a point. He had a surprisingly wide berth about him and nervous glances were quickly avoiding his eyes as he looked. He grimaced back his stormcloud expression and squinted at the signs about them. The top language on all the signs was a Cyrillic he could not read, but English was printed beneath them all. He had learned English as a child in the Temple, but it had been some time since he read it. After squinting a few moments more he and Tomas made their way to the bag drop. He stood a fair way back from the electric runners circulating passenger luggage round the large white hall. Aggravated airport staff before their departure had run miles of luminous yellow warning tape around their bag since it contained small arsenal of bladed weapons. Kuai was pretty sure he would see the luggage from some distance.

“Ahah. Look, we gained an extra layer.” Tomas pointed. Dismayed tourists were staring incredulously at the bright tape blaring on the wrapped bag as it made its round on the lazy snake-like luggage river. At some point an even more concerned attendant had shrink wrapped the whole lot in cellophane so that it now resembled a hideous shining yellow egg. Kuai made to push through the crowd, but found it parted before him as he heaved the bag up.

“I don’t know why you needed to bring all this extra stuff,” Kuai shot at Tomas as he freed one of the handholds with difficulty. They made a quick beeline for the exit. “What’s wrong with just a couple of knives? Did you really need, three swords, throwing stars, and that extra roll of knives?”

“And the Guandao.”

“What? There’s no way-”

“Just kidding. Anyway, there’s your stuff in there too. You sure brought a lot of blades given that you can make all your own weapons anyway. Some of us have to rely on good old fashioned steel as a primary weapon.”

“You’re always saying your hands are the only weapon you need.”

“It’s true. Any place you find me, there’s danger. Where-”

“Please don’t. It gets really irritating when you say that all the t-”

“Where there’s Smoke, there’s fire.”

The bright sun beat down on a flare of bleating taxi ranks and lumbering buses trying navigate in and out the narrow lanes.

“Wait here,” Tomas told him, “I’ll see if I can get us a taxi.”

Kuai stood awkwardly with bags piled up like temple offering around him as Tomas moved off. Kuai followed him with his eyes as he ran up and down the taxi ranks gesticulating wildly and receiving a return fire of hot conversation as he went. He realised with a slight pang that Tomas looked somehow more at home here than he ever did when visiting Beijing or Hong Kong.

“OK I found us a taxi! We have a discount because I told him we are Russian expats from the countryside visiting out sick mother in hospital.” Tomas beamed at him as he jogged up.

“What? But I can’t even speak Russian! And doesn’t that mean he’ll take us to the hospital?”

“Don’t worry I think the hospital is near the city centre anyway.”

“We don’t even need a discount, Tomas. We have the Temple funds to cover all our essentials.”

“Yes but now we can spend the Temple funds on even more essential things, like buying you your first European beer.”

“Tomas-”

“Come on, he’s waiting!”

There were a number of hospitals in the city, but Tomas shouted in Russian at the taxi driver until he drove them at emergency pace to one that was near enough the centre. He thanked the driver in Czech, and tried to pay him Chinese Renminbi. Kuai stood some way off from the whole fiasco until it had blown over and the taxi driver drove off, confused and swearing for good measure out one window.

“Oops!” Tomas held a wad of yuan in his hand. “Forgot about currency. I also forgot some Russian. But never mind, his Russian was pretty bad too. We’re here now though. Let’s get this money changed and I’ll find us a bar.”

“I don’t want a bar – I want somewhere quiet and not moving where I can read over the mission files.”

“That, my friend, is a bar. Come on.”

“We’re not allowed to drink, Tomas.”

“We’re not allowed this, Tomas, we’re not allowed that, Tomas. Wake up, Kuai. It’s a beautiful summer day, we’re six thousand miles from home, and its nearly seven in the morning. That means if we start now we can drink for ten hours solid and still have three hours to sober up before we have to call and check in with Bi-Han.”

The compromise was a bright coffee shop with chairs that were slightly too small to accommodate their size and a menu in three languages Kuai couldn’t read. He ordered a tea but it tasted foul compared to home and he pushed it away after one sip and focused on reading the papers they had been given. The morning passed pleasantly after the commotion of the early hours and Kuai even felt himself relaxing a little. He frowned slightly as he perused the file. By contrast, Tomas was on his third coffee and had affected an anxious twitching and drumming of his fingers that most irritated Kuai.

“Seems we finally landed a character who deserves what they have coming.” Kuai looked up at his agitated colleague.

“What? Yes. Sure. Not that I see what that has to do with anything. A contract’s a contract.”

“Yes, of course.” Kuai said quickly, “Only, I mean, I’m glad that... well, sometimes it bothers me that our targets seem so arbitrary and ordinary. Like they’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not that that affects my ability to get a job done, of course.”

Tomas seemed not to notice his slightly awkward manner. He was humming vaguely and glancing off in different directions.

“Anyway, according to this, our target may well be responsible for coordinating the deaths of over a hundred civilians.”

“Not as many as Bi-Han, I bet.”

“Tomas-!” He gave in exasperation as his friend finally looked at him, “It wasn’t a competition. I wasn’t trying to _praise_ him – our target is a _war criminal_ – some high up in an army-”

“How can he be a criminal for killing if he was in the army?”

“For killing _civilians_. Did you even read this file?”

“I read the last two pages.”

Kuai flipped to the back. One was a physical descriptions of the target with two photos of him, one from seventeen years ago and one from twenty-five years ago. The other page was a list of illicit substances and activities it was expected the Lin Kuei to abstain from whilst abroad. Tomas tapped it,

“I had not even thought of doing _half_ the things on here. Good of them to provide checklist.” He winked. Kuai slammed the file shut and glared at him.

“Are you deliberately trying to sabotage this mission? Don’t you understand how important this is!? The Grandmaster thinks I’ve been questioning his orders – I need-”

“You _have_ been questioning his orders.”

“I _need_ this mission to go perfectly.”

Tomas rocked back on his chair then let it snap with a clack back to the floor,

“Alright, Mister Perfect. So where do we start looking?”

Kuai frowned and rifled through the file,

“I haven’t got to that bit yet. I was-”

Tomas leaned over and flipped to the penultimate page again with its two photos. He pointed to about halfway down to where the file said ′ _Location: missing for fifteen years. Last seen Belgrade, Serbia, 2001.’_

“Where we start looking,” Tomas set him with steady, sardonic eyes, “Is in all the local bars for rumour and gossip. Our target is a ghost, you are a slow reader, and _I_ am going to get my beer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Troublemaker Tomas will continue in the next chapter too. I used to play as Smoke a lot in MK9. Everyone I played against got really irritated when I played out Smoke's intro comment every time :D I bet Kuai Liang hates it too. Also throwing in some of Kuai's problems that are going to end up the focus of this story. Thoughts and comments are always a pleasure to read so please do leave one if you wish!


	3. Liberty

The heat of the day had worn Kuai down. He sat now in a darkened corner of a bar nursing a glass of orange juice. He kept his hand wrapped tight around it and sent the occasional wave of frost through the glass to keep it chill. Even the evening was hot. Tomas sat down heavily next to him with his third enormous litre flagon of beer.

“I think I’m in heaven.” He smiled sleepily at Kuai, “We’re so close to Prague I can feel it in my bones. I haven’t been this close in twenty years.”

“Quiet. You’re talking very loudly. It’s embarrassing.”

Tomas took a sip of the beer and frowned. He looked at Kuai’s glass misted with the cold.

“Will you chill my beer? Pleeease, Kuai.”

“No. Shut up. That’s an abuse of a cryomancer’s power.”

“But you’re definitely icing that juice. I can see ice crystals on the glass! Please, Kuai. Only Bi-Han says that’s an abuse of power – I think it’s your one true heritage – and it’s why you are clearly the better brother in every way. Come on-”

“Alright! But only to shut you up! And you have to promise to actually try and find out some information!” Kuai reached over to the flagon when he was sure no one was looking and sent waves of cold through his hand to the mug. The gift was a rare one, he and his brother both shared. Command of ice was still not enough for Kuai to feel comfortable in the landlocked summer temperatures of eastern Europe however.

“I can’t talk to anyone here, they all speak Serbian.”

“What?” Kuai stared at him, “But I thought we were here to collect information? Now you’re telling me you can’t even speak the language?”

“I can speak way more languages than you, so you shut up. I’m pretty sure they can speak Russian too but everyone’s being really cagey about it.”

“What about English?”

“I tried that just now.”

“No, you didn’t. I heard you. You were speaking Mandarin.”

Tomas looked at him hard, then looked at the beer.

“Oh. That explains why that guy was so rude. I suppose he didn’t understand all the things I called him when he ignored me then... I’ll try again in English.” He got up and made his way, with a slight sway to his footstep, toward a harassed client.

Kuai sighed and looked down at his drink. Then he looked up at the clock on the wall. Two hours before they had to find a landline and check in with the Temple. He had nothing to show for the day, they still needed to find a bed to sleep in for the night, it turned out Tomas wasn’t fluent in the native language as he had promised and the evening temperature still was not dropping below thirty-six degrees centigrade. His glass made a splitting noise like a Himalayan cornice before an avalanche. He looked down and saw the glass had become so cold and brittle in his grasp that it was cracked with a fine network lines all over it. He stared at it silently until Tomas returned.

Tomas joined him in looking at the glass,

“Too bad,” he said, “Anyway I met a guy who told me there’s a second hand book shop not far from here with a good lot of literature on history in this area. It’s not much to go on, but if you think reading up on this guy is the way to go it might be a good place to start. I told him we’re American tourists and that my grasp of local history isn’t intended to be offensive, just ignorant.”

“A bookshop.” Kuai said flatly. “We’ve wasted a day to hear that they might be a bookshop.”

“If you want to try doing the talking then be my guest, Kuai Liang.”

“I have to tell Bi-Han that in the first day of our mission we achieved nothing but finding the whereabouts of a bookshop. Oh, and Tomas drank three pots of coffee, four litres of beer, and nearly started a fight with a taxi driver as he pretended to be a Russian oligarch.”

“Expat. I wasn’t trying to be an oligarch. That would be stupid and dangerous.”

Kuai froze the liquid in his glass solid then dropped the whole glass in Tomas’ beer. The glass fractured in the warmer fluid and shattered into tiny pieces. A large icecube of orange juice bobbed in the beer.

“You bastard.” Tomas said, but without venom in the face of Kuai’s anger.

“Pay the bill. We’re leaving. I’m finding us a hotel before you cause any more trouble. And don’t try to pay in yuan this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a wee short chapter. Will update in a day or two with another. I revel in dropping socially inept Lin Kuei assassins into everyday life. This madness will continue. As always - any comments or support are dearly loved :o


	4. Communication Breakdown

In the dimly lit ground floor of a hotel, Kuai stood desperately trying to negotiate a room with a member of staff. Tomas stood nearby, stubbornly refusing to offer his aid. Kuai was becoming more agitated the closer the clock ticked to his appointed time to call the Lin Kuei Temple.

“Yes. Thank-you. You called this ′twin’ - it has two beds?”

“Yes, two beds. Twin room.”

“Yes, this will be good for us. Twin room. And also a telephone?”

“Telephone? No. Telephone is here in reception.”

“Here? In this room?”

“ _This_ room. This reception. Yes telephone. No telephone in twin room.”

“But I can use telephone here?”

“Yes. Use telephone here.”

“Can I use it now? Right now?”

“Yes. Anytime. Now, tomorrow, next Easter. Anytime use the telephone.”

Kuai had a suspicion the attendant was mocking his English. He ignored the feeling however, and paid for the rooms up front.

“Tomas, get the bags up to the room. I’ll have to put the call through now or we’ll miss our window.” He switched back to Mandarin but his tone was clipped and irate.

“Anything you say, oh great master of language and communication.”

Kuai ignored him and was shown to the hotel landline. He waited until the attendant had left to show Tomas the room before picking up the receiver. He dialled the number. It rang once, twice, three times as prescribed. Then nothing. Kuai calmed his breathing.

“We are more stealthful than the night.”

“And more deadly than the dawn.”

He sighed silently when he heard his brother’s voice.

“Confirm location, Tundra.”

“Belgrade.”

“And Smoke?”

“We’re both present.”

“Good. Report.”

Kuai was put off by the abruptness of Bi-Han’s tone. It was rare for a report system to be set up for a Lin Kuei mission. They were reserved for missions expected to take a while, or occurring long distance. In this case it was both. Kuai Liang had been on neither before. He was not entirely sure what a mission report was meant to look like twenty-four hours in when all he had done was sit on a plane and then in a cafe.

“No problems encountered. We have a place for the night and a lead to follow in the morning that may help us track down the target.” That sounded good. That sounded like a day well spent.

“What lead?”

Kuai swore internally.

“A source of information that may shed light on the whereabouts of-”

“What lead, Tundra. Answer a question when your superior asks you one.”

 _Superior?_ Bi-Han was definitely milking this, Kuai decided furiously.

“Yes, of course. A book store on local history in the area.”

There was silence. Kuai looked along the hotel counter. Its scratched wood was tipped with a resplendent gold in the tilt of the evening light. The silence was so long Kuai found himself hoping the metre had ran out on the call.

“A book store.” When it finally came the intonation was cold and dead. “Did it take you all day to track down this book store you have not yet visited, Tundra?” Kuai felt his throat dry in shame.

“No. I spent the morning reading over the mission files. A language barrier made it a little difficult to-”

“Why did you not read the files on your flight over as instructed.” Bi-Han had stopped intoning all his questions as questions. The effect was a slow steamroller that Kuai knew ended in a severe reprimand. He wished he could skip to the admonition and get the whole business over with.

“I tried to, but the words... I couldn’t read it properly on the plane, the characters kept moving on the page... I...”

“You felt travel sick.”

“Yes. No!” He said immediately after, remembering who he was speaking to, “Not sick, just-”

“Weak. Unable to complete stage one: the simple task of reading your assignment, and so instead wasted an entire day catching up because of your weakness.”

Kuai swallowed and bent his shoulders around the receiver. He cupped his forehead in his hand.

“Bi-Han, I’m sorry, I-”

“Codenames only.”

“Sub-Zero,-”

“And no excuses. Get a move on and stop fooling around. This mission reflects on both of us. I will not have you dragging my hard-earned reputation into the mud. And tell Smoke, if I find out he’s been squandering Lin Kuei resources instead of helping you, I will personally hand his skull and severed spine to the Grandmaster. Understood?”

“Yes, Sub-Zero.”

“Report in same time tomorrow. Out.”

The phone crackled and went to the monotone marking the end of the call. Kuai kept it to his ear for some time before slowly hanging it back up. When he turned he realised the hotel attendant had returned.

“Not good call?” The attendant asked.

Kuai grimaced,

“Uh... family matters.”

“Family.” The attendant shook his head knowingly, “Burden of us all.” He smiled at Kuai, “Your friend room eleven, floor three.”

Kuai thanked him and trudged slowly upstairs.

He stopped before the hotel room door, staring at the copper plate number eleven in Arabic numerals. A weight hung on his shoulders and tiredness behind his eyes. He shook his head in disappointment and frustration. He pushed open the door. It opened onto a small room with single beds against two walls, a wash basin and a window with wrought iron bars. Tomas lay on a bed reading through the mission files. Their luggage was sprawled across the floor between.

“Tomas,” He started. He realised his serious voice sounded just like his brother’s. This knowledge gave him a certain vindictive delight as he finished his sentence, “I think I’m in the mood to learn about European beer after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've missed writing Noob Saibot and Sub Zero dialogues so much since I finished my last fic. This is a fic about Smoke and Kuai Liang but expect more of Bi-Han butting in every now and again to ruin everyone's day. Also introducing some trademark angst that I will try to keep from taking over for as long as possible. For an inexplicable reason the next chapter is five times as long as any other so far, it will be updating in the next few days. Thanks for reading and for faves and reviews/comments, always a pleasure to hear you are enjoying this so do let me know!


	5. Wolves in the Fold

He stared into a greasy slightly concave mirror. There was a pounding in his head and he could not work out if it was coming from the speakers overhead in the bathroom or from within his own skull. He looked at his hands as they gripped the sink. The knuckles were red and raw. He frowned then glanced back to the mirror. His hair was unruly, like he’d run his hand one way through it and forgotten to flatten it again. He tugged at a tank top that clung to him, there was beer down the front of it. The smell made his nose twitch in discomfort. He blinked slowly. All of this had been a very bad idea, he was deciding. He did not feel relaxed, he felt out of control. He turned as the door to the bathroom opened, bringing with it the momentary blare and assault on the ears from the club beyond. Tomas stumbled in.

“Kuai! There you are!” All his words were slurred and he had no balance in his step.

“Let’s go back to the Temple now,” Kuai said in confusion.

Tomas shook his head and caught his arm,

“We’re nowhere near the Temple, remember?”

Kuai frowned and let himself be led back into the dark of the club. Lights flashed irregularly overhead and he shied away from them, expecting a downpour of rain to follow what he took for lightening. The thunder of the bass was jarring through his bones with shuddering tremors. The uncertain terrain set him on edge. He could not quite remember why he felt so disorientated. He was aware of feeling simultaneously calm and anxious. His shoulders tensed when Tomas let go of him. His friend turned to him and mouthed something at him that Kuai could not hear over the music. Then he was gone into the crowd.

Kuai glanced around him, his vision a slowed mix of blurring bodies that shifted as half illumined shadows. His eyes followed as quickly as his instincts would allow. He found his apprehension growing. His head ached thinly and moving his eyeballs too fast caused a strain to crawl behind them. Something brushed close by to him and his hair stood on end. He whirled round but was too slow to see whatever it was. His pulse was loud in his ears now and his head snapped in different directions, feeling assaulted by the alien sensory input. A shoulder jarred into him and his body took over before he could even think.

An expert punch snapped out of his arm and he floored the offender before they could move an inch. He reached down, dragged the unfortunate victim up by the front of their clothes and cracked his forehead down onto their nose. A plaintive cry went up that managed to cut through some of the stereo sound. A space opened up around him, but Kuai hardly noticed as he was intent on pummelling his captive. Two large men dressed in black pushed through the crowd that had turned inward to watch the scene. Kuai felt a hand on his bicep. He dropped the first offender in favour of this second. He clasped a hand to the one on his arm, changed up his feet, dropped and twisted. He threw the bouncer onto the dance floor then stamped down and crushed his fingers. The bones crunched under his heel and the dance music was punctuated by a feral scream. A second man went for a bear-hug. Kuai forced the grip apart and span round with a flowing double punch, catching the man in the side of the head with first one then a second first as he turned through the momentum. Before the man could drop he kneed him in the chest and heard the breath go out from him along with a groan of pain. Kuai summoned a long spike of ice to his hand and raised it above his head. A fourth body bowled into him.

This time Kuai lost his balance and sprawled back onto the floor. The assailant was quick on the uptake, using his higher position to pin Kuai with his knees as he forced his arm with the ice blade back to the ground. He was much faster and more experienced than the others. Kuai growled, bucking his hips to dislodge the attacker. The attacker did not use his advantage to start landing punches on Kuai and instead seemed to be trying to disarm and incapacitate him. Kuai grabbed the front of the man’s shirt and tugged him in close, bridging suddenly and forcing his weight up and over. He rolled them and took the offensive position above his assailant, pulling back a hand to start pounding him. Before he could, he was pulled in tight to a clinch. Suddenly he could not breathe, his eyes stung and his lung were choked with smoke. Everything about him shimmered and felt insubstantial.

The ground under him felt colder and harder. He realised there was a slight breeze on his cheek and the ricochetting thunder of the bass beat was no longer throbbing in his ears. He was jerked back to reality by the feel of a firm boot kicking him in the chest and forcing him off the opponent he had been sitting on.

“Gods, Kuai. You really can’t hold your alcohol.”

Kuai sat down hard on his backside, squinting in the starlight as the silhouette of Tomas got up and brushed himself down.

“Oh,” He said dully, “It’s you.”

“Yes. It’s me. And you better be thankful it was or it would have been a night in a local precinct for you.”

Kuai put his hand to his temple and slowly stood up, swaying a little. He glanced around,

“Did you... _teleport_ me?”

“You didn’t give me much choice.” Tomas scowled, “And I had to dump the drinks I got us to stop you _stabbing_ someone to death.”

Kuai frowned,

“Someone attacked me.”

“Two bouncers tried to remove you from the building because you were beating the living shit out of someone.”

“I thought they were attacking me too.”

Tomas slapped his palm to his forehead,

“Note to future self, Kuai gains ten levels of paranoia when drunk.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“Sure, sure. Let’s get out of here before someone finds us and recognises you.” They were in a narrow back alley where thin slivers of moonlight passed over stacked rubbish and closed window shutters.

“Can we go back to the Temple, now?” Kuai’s head hurt and he was still confused about what exactly was going on and why everyone was trying to attack him.

“Yes, Kuai. Sure. We’re going back to the Temple now.” Tomas grabbed his wrist and pulled him out the alleyway, “This way.”

“Let’s not tell Bi-Han we were out of the Temple after dark.”

“That’s a good idea, Kuai. Now follow me and be quiet now, OK?”

“Alright.” Kuai agreed. Then, “Tomas, where did the thunderstorm go?”

His friend gave him a sleepy, disbelieving look, and simply shook his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to insert an extra chapter because passing up an opportunity to write young drunk Kuai Liang would be a crime. I think I make mention to an age somewhere in a later chapter, but for reference, Kuai is maybe 20/21, and Tomas is maybe 23 (Putting Bi-Han at around 28/9)? I also just wanted a party for the right to write some fight ;) I do love writing me some fight scenes even if they are small and one sided. Comments and reviews always welcome!


	6. Trespassers In the World

He awoke slowly. The light burned his eyelids and made his head throb. His limbs ached, his knuckles burned, and there was a spike of discomfort running down his spine. He opened his eyes and stared at the shadows tilting on the hotel wall. It was late morning. Without moving his head, his vision swivelled to the left. Tomas’ comatose hand hung loose from the bed. The corpse-like quality to that sight stirred him into action. He heaved his limbs upright, ignoring their protest and the ricochet of complaints that swum through his pounding skull.

“Tomas? Are you alright?” No answer. His attention snapped into focus and he drove all thought of discomfort from him. He dropped immediately to kneel at beside his friend’s side, “Tomas?” He put a tentative hand on his shoulder and shook him gently, “Tomas?”

“No...” The murmured reply came dark and stifled through a thin blanket. Kuai sat back on his legs and sighed. Now that his concern was gone, his grinding headache returned. He put two fingers to his temple and let ice numb some of the pain.

“Come on. We have to go check out your bookshop.”

“...You go.”

“Bi-Han said unless you help me he’s going to... I don’t know, something involving your spine and your head not being attached anymore.”

“His threats... are several thousand miles too far away to mean anything.”

Kuai put his head under a cold tap until his dark hair streamed wet across his brow. He blinked water out his eyes and stared at the red scar on the face that looked back out the rusty mirror. The reflection looked strong and sure of itself, with a well-built physique and bright, arresting blue eyes. He wished he had the confidence it seemed to have. It’s icy eyes looked more like they belonged to the aloof certainty of his brother and not himself. He faintly recalled a dirtied mirror from the night before and the half-delirious reflection of his paranoid self staring back out at him. He glanced down at his knuckles. They were grazed and chaffed. He flexed his fingers and ran them under the tap, brushing away smears of blood that he found there. He winced on realising the skin was not broken and the blood was not his own.

“We’re a joke.” He said as he towelled himself and walked back into the bedroom. “Did you ever see a sight look less Lin Kuei than the state of us right now.”

Tomas groaned and turned over,

“Should have known your fun wasn’t going to last beyond daybreak.” He mumbled from the bed sheets.

“Nothing voluntarily undertaken is worth the pain in my head right now. I can’t even remember half of what happened yesterday. I’m sticking with tea from here on out.”

Tomas rolled onto his back and draped his head off the side of his bed. He threw his pillow at Kuai who caught it and looked at him coldly.

“I wish I _couldn’t_ remember what happened yesterday. Gods you were so embarrassing. Anyway, we had a good time, mostly. Never forget the taste of freedom, my friend. Always remember to be decadent when no one’s looking. That should be the Lin Kuei motto, not all that crap about deadly dawns. You only get deadly dawns with hammered hangovers anyway.”

“Up.” Kuai threw the pillow back at him, his patience wearing thin, “Or I’ll freeze you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Kuai took one step closer and Tomas vaulted out of bed.

“I’m up! Damn cryomancer threats and their obsession with the rules.”

They shielded their eyes from the late morning sun and squinted at the roadside as they ambled blindly along it.

“I’d die if our teachers saw us like this.”

“Quite literally.”

“Stop it, Tomas. You’re not making this any easier.”

By the time they arrived at the book store Kuai could at least keep his eyes open and string together coherent thoughts in his head. Tomas propped himself up on a post shading boxes of books that opened onto the street. He pulled a hoodie pulled low over his eyes. He promptly became part of the furniture, leaving Kuai to edge around the shelves looking for letters in an alphabet he could recognise. Kuai’s initial concern about the lateness of the hour, the aftermath of their inebriated state and thoughts of Temple punishment should they ever be found out, receded. The store was cool after the hot street and its shelves ran floor to ceiling with little space between. A musty smell clung with dust motes to the air and he imagined himself in something like a thick bamboo forest, where the light came irregular and each dappled shadow held its own secrets. He ran his fingers over the spines, wondering at the volumes of knowledge he would never have. Perhaps in another life, he might have been someone permitted to read any book he pleased, perhaps even own them. He withdrew his hand, frowning at such seditious thought. He owned nothing, only what the Temple bestowed upon him. Including his life, and his life’s skills.

A question broke him from his reverie. It came from a short, severe woman with large glasses and a wrinkled face. Kuai was immediately apprehensive. He had spoken only with a dozen women in his entire life.

“I’m sorry.” He said, “I don’t understand.”

“Ah, English. Not much English here. You look over road for English. Drama, romance, detective novels – that is all that’s popular now, yes?”

She sounded slightly accusatory. Kuai narrowed his eyes,

“I was told you had modern history here.”

Now her eyes narrowed,

“How modern you want?”

This felt like some kind of bizarrely illicit exchange.

“How... modern do you have?”

She set him with dark eyes and her thin lips twitched slightly.

“Nothing English can read.” She turned and made as if to stomp off.

“My friend can read Russian. Anything in Russian?”

She turned half way back so that a bookshelf put her part in shadow. She looked him up and down. Kuai cursed his appearance for the first time.

“You like lots of quiet reading of modern Serbian history, you and your Russian friend?” Kuai opened his mouth, “Not here. Not in my shop.” She said with determination, “I know kinds like you. No read as far as you can shoot! No thank you!”

Kuai knew he had said something wrong, and felt infuriated that he did not have the political nuance to know what.

“Out! Out! I don’t care who pay you!” She gestured like she might a swarm of biting instincts. Kuai backed off.

Suddenly Tomas was at his side, speaking soft fluent words and consoling the woman. He made gentle pleading gestures then throwaway one’s towards Kuai, then a gesture to something on the wall then back to himself then to the woman, all the while sweet talking in a lilting, if angular language. Kuai peered subtly round the shelf corner to glimpse what was on the wall. A miniature flag showing a blue triangle on a split white and red background was hung with a little plate metal coat of arms filled with rampant lions and long-tongued eagles.

When Tomas and the woman finished their exchange, Kuai regarded him anxiously. If the woman had worked out they were assassins everything was going to get a lot more difficult. He hoped he wouldn’t have to kill her.

“Come on, Kuai. We’re going to have _trdeln_ _í_ _k_ in the back.”

Kuai steadied his breathing and curled his fingers into a fist that begun to mist with gathered cold. He did not know this euphemism, but he would trust Tomas’ judgement if it had to go down this way. Tomas stared at the ice gathering on Kuai’s arm.

“ _Cakes_.” He hissed.

Kuai frowned in confusion. He wished Tomas would use the standard Lin Kuei terms. A fine sliver of ice formed a short knife in his hand. Tomas grabbed his wrist and looked into his eyes as though he were a madman. 

“ _Actual_ cake. Godsdamnit you’re way too much like your brother sometimes.”

Kuai resented that. He let the ice melt from his fingers and gave Tomas a dark glare.

“How do you expect me to understand what’s going on! And I am _not_ like him. I didn’t want to have to-”

“Stop moaning for once and come have some cake. Everything has to be so intense with you, Kuai Liang. Cake. It’s cake. You don’t have to kill anything.”

The back of the shop opened quickly into an orange and wood kitchen with a circle table that sat at an angle, wicker chairs, and patterned curtains on a small window. The woman patted the two large men into chairs and seemed not to notice as Kuai flinched at her touch. She turned around and went to her cupboard still chatting animately as she went.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on,” Kuai hissed at Tomas.

Tomas was smiling and nodding along to the woman’s rant.

“She’s Czech.” He gave, “I told her I hadn’t met a fellow kinsman since I was a small child. I told her I missed the cakes the most.”

“Tomas!”

“What? It’s no more elaborate that what I’ve told random people so far in this city. This farfetched tale just happens to be true.”

“Are you crazy? Revealing anything of your past to someone outside the clan? They could pin treason on you for this!”

“Only if you tell. Anyway, she knows a lot about the history round here, and more importantly, has contacts who know even more.”

Kuai felt like this crossfire between leisure and furthering the mission was becoming something of a perfected art of Tomas’s.

“And what about me? What did you tell her about me?”

“Oh. Same as last time, that you’re a confused American tourist. I think I’m onto a winner with that one. They seem to forgive a lot when I say that.”

Kuai sat glowering over the round table at Tomas as he spoke animately to the old woman. She produced several sickly looking buns laid out on a napkin on a cut glass plate. Then brought out three bottles of lager from out her fridge. 

“Not for me.” Kuai held up a hand.

She tutted in disapproval and Tomas joined her. The two of them uncapped beers and helped themselves to pastries. Kuai was glad for the time to himself to brood over how quick he had been to consider this woman worthy of death, of how Tomas had accused him of being as bloodthirsty as his brother, of the genuine surprise and confusion in Tomas’ face as he saw Kuai ready a blade.  _Like he didn’t know me. Like he was afraid of my intentions. I can’t seem to get anything right._ He again went back to thinking of what might have become of him had he lived a different life, had he become a book seller...

He looked up when he heard Tomas laugh. The young man had cream on his nose and a real, genuine smile in his eyes, that Kuai had never seen before. He had known Tomas since he had first arrived at the Temple. He was a little older than Kuai, and arrived afraid, with a hunted look to his face and a language barrier that only increased his timidity. The two shared a bond of friendship forged in mischief and mishaps that was perhaps a bit too strong for a clan that demanded absolute loyalty to its Grandmaster. But even after all these long years, Kuai had never seen a smile from his friend quite like that. The language somehow suited him as well. Kuai had never thought of it before, but it seemed more natural to him, as if something of Tomas flowed through it that two decades of Mandarin had not made up for. Kuai found himself envious that his friend was old enough to have lost a past.  _It is a burden. A burden to have memories of another life. See how it steers Tomas away from our mission, into places it... it will only be more painful for him to leave_ . He picked idly at a bun in front of him.

The conversation waxed on in Czech, and Kuai Liang found himself staring out of the kitchen window onto the inner city vista beyond. Concrete yards sparse with rebellious grass were separated by mesh fences. The sanctums in between held ageing children’s toys green with old, lopsided washing lines heavy with home and that dry baked look that comes of long hot summers. He could not imagine a life in which those things were part of the everyday. The world beyond the walls of the Lin Kuei always looked to him chaotic, unruly and filled with stories that belonged in books and not the strict rules of life. He found himself glancing at the kitchen appliances in the room and wondering what each did, noticing the strange cutlery, the multitude of cooking implements, the haphazard stack of cassette tapes and CDs, all paraphernalia belonging in a dream world that he entered to eliminate a life from.

Everything here was very different and yet also very similar to mainland China, where all his missions had taken place so far. The language and vestiges of shared culture made China’s cities easier to navigate than Europe, but each confronted him with the glaring lights of a modern era that had left the Lin Kuei long behind. He barely comprehended the values these people held dear, and certainly found it hard to imagine how they must think and what they did with their lives when they had so much freedom and variety of choice. He would occasionally fantasise about living the lifestyles they did, but always after a while he would become overwhelmed by the staggering immensity of everything they had and everything they could have. He often wondered how any one person could simply get on with their life when plagued by so many opportunities and expectations, and caught up in the worries of having to continually obtain money in order to support such basic needs as food, shelter and warmth. In many ways the world outside the Temple was a futuristic fantasy filled with wonders, but in its fundamental failure to deliver the most commonplace needs that even a talentless child initiated into the Lin Kuei was never denied, it deeply perplexed Kuai Liang.

He glanced up from his reverie. Time was moving on and Tomas was not. He tried to judge a break in their conversation but found none. Eventually he broke in in Mandarin over the top.

“Tomas, can you wrap this up? We do actually have a mission to get on with. Unless you want to be the one explaining to Bi-Han why all we did today was eat cakes in the back of a bookshop I suggest you shut up so that we can get on and do something useful with the day.”

Tomas and the old woman both scowled at his interruption.

“I _am_ doing something useful. This woman knows a guy who lives out of town with a private library that has a special collection on recent political figures in the old Yugoslav area. She seems pretty sure that we can find out anything we want there on anyone we want. I didn’t push it, but she implied its the place to look for information on ‘missing’ persons.”

“If you know this – then why are we still here!?”

“Did you learn manners in a prison? Actually don’t answer that-”

“ _Tomas!_ ” Kuai stood up, “That’s it. I’m leaving. I can’t stand this heat and this _sitting_ around.” He walked back through bookshop and out the front onto the street.

A noon sun stood still in the sky and wilted all the street to the fading yellow of old photographs. Kuai leaned against the pock marked brick work of the shop exterior and covered his eyes with one hand. He was too hot, but could not strike a good balance between wearing something cool and something that covered him up enough to avoid turns in the street. It was bad enough that people stared at the scar. He didn’t need to look like he was trying to show off enough muscle to start a fight or pick up unwanted attentions. He sighed, trying to curl out the way of the sunlight. He missed one-night missions that begun and ended in the dark. The in-between was a perfect cocoon of silence in which he tiptoed into the blare of the night, took what he had been sent to take, then moved as a shadow back to the safety of the Temple walls.  _Safety. If I truly think of it that way, why do I always long to be beyond those walls whenever I return to them?_ He pushed that thought from his head and concentrated on being angry. He couldn’t be angry with Tomas though. Tomas was actually getting somewhere with this mission. What had  _he_ done? Nearly had a fight with an old woman and gotten his first hangover the night before. He cringed in self-loathing.

Tomas joined him within five minutes,

“That was very rude of you.”

“I apologise from the depths of my cold, frozen heart.”

“And your sarcasm is unappreciated. Don’t worry I covered for you. I told that dear lady you were raised by your brother, an abominable snowman made of _solid ice,_ and hence you have a social competency level of approximately zero. Maybe even sub-zero .”

Kuai iced a fist and turned to him,

“Joke. (Also a good one). Relax. Someone needs to learn how to handle their hangovers. That is the last time I’m ever taking you drinking. This way, we need to catch a bus from the other side of town.”

Kuai was sullen for the duration of the walk, though he still took moments to glance up and notice the sights of the city. Long grim buildings with impressive stone exteriors finished with ornate towers or classical façades stared grimly down at him. The occasional criss-cross of out of place modern buildings faded into the heights of the summer sky above, somehow distant and removed from the wide busy grey streets below. He had almost forgotten his anger as he studied the strange sturdy architecture they passed, when Tomas decided to speak up.

“You know what your problem is, Kuai Liang.” Kuai set him with dark eyes. “Your problem is you care too much about the things that don’t matter, and too little about the things that do. When it comes to the small print you want to follow it down to the letter. How can you not understand that as long as its kept low key and there are no complaints, the Lin Kuei don’t give a shit what we get up to. As long as there’s a mission accomplished, everything else slides. And instead when it really counts – when they _really_ care – things like leaving no potential witnesses alive, things like rigorous and approved methods of information extraction... you’re up to your neck in trouble – picking fights with the teachers, arguing back after mission debriefings... how can you have got everything so backwards!?”

“Maybe I follow the minor details to the letter so that I can make a big deal out of the things actually matter.”

“Kuai, I swear you’re going to bring the Grandmaster down on your case so badly one of these days-”

“Did you ever think that maybe they let their assassins have all the fun they want as a way to control us, placate us and keep us quiet in case we ever object to any of the methods we’re required to employ?”

“Nobody objects to any methods except you, Kuai.”

“Well maybe they should!”

“Kuai, we’re not under-age any more. They’re not going to keep letting your attitude slide-”

“Did Bi-Han put you up to this?”

“Kuai, come on... ah never mind. We’re nearly at the bus stop.”

“You didn’t answer my-”

“That’s it. That’s the bus we want!”

They ran up the street, heavy canvas bags clanking with steel and supplies. Tomas beat him to the stop and jumped on before the doors closed. The driver spoke no languages Tomas knew so he was left counting out small change on his hand while Kuai crammed his bulk into the doorway behind.

“Move up.”

“Shut it, Kuai, I’m trying to count.”

“They need to make their public transport larger.”

“You need to stop getting up at four A.M. to do pressups in the Temple grounds.”

Kuai pulled his elbows in self-consciously in an effort to make himself smaller.

“Bi-Han started three A.M. when he was my age,” He mumbled into the neck of his jumper.

“There.” Tomas handed over the change and they squeezed down the aisle. The dumped the bags and found seats. “Seriously? Three o’clock in the morning? What’s wrong with that guy?”

Kuai shrugged, more comfortable now that they were behind all the eye lines of the rest of the travellers on board,

“Perfectionist, I guess.”

“Was he really mad last night?”

Kuai shrugged again, this time more non-committal. Tomas leaned back,

“Well, at least we’ll have something to report today.”

Kuai gave a cold laugh.

“We will,” Tomas insisted, “From what I’ve been told – all but tipped off by the way; I think that sweet old lady had a thing for me,” He winked, “There should be information in this library that will give us our target. There aren’t _that_ many missing top officials is what she hinted at, and this library in particular she suggested might give us what we’re looking for. She was a little cryptic, or maybe my Czech’s not what it was, anyway, it sounds like we’ll be in a good place to track down our target’s last movements and try to pinpoint a present location. Then we’ll wrap this up, clean up and head home.”

“It’s not enough. It’s never enough. We’re being too slow with this mission. We’re not moving fast enough, not moving smooth enough, not-”

Tomas set him with a look. Kuai sighed.

“Take a moment, my friend. Look out that window,” Tomas pointed, “That’s the countryside of a continent you’ve never seen before.”

Kuai looked. Undulating fields of gold and strident green were jewelled with thick rolls of new hay drying in the sun. Dipping woods of wide armed trees spread lazy and sighing over the shoulders of gentle hills. Shadows slipped quiet and small, flitting from under the eaves of thin shrubs and bright painted lintels of country houses. He watched slow cows amble in flower strewn meadows and high birds circle against clear blue skies. He leaned back in his seat and looked across at Tomas.

“Do you ever feel... misplaced? Like you’re a step out of time with everything out there? Like your somehow invisible and untouched by anything that happens?”

Tomas squinted out the window then sat back,

“Nope!” He folded his hands behind his head. “I’m just guy with a job same as any other. Albeit with a bit of a sheltered upbringing. But... someone’s got to be the bookseller, someone else has to be the assassin...”

Kuai glanced as him suspiciously,

“Sometimes I don’t believe a word that comes out your mouth.”

Tomas nodded at him sagely,

“Wiser words were never spoken.”

Kuai sent a stream of ice cold air down his neck. Tomas put two fingers together and sent smoke straight out of them into Kuai’s eyes. Kuai coughed loudly and waved the smoke away. The passengers in the seats ahead turned to looked at them. Tomas glared at them until they turned around.

“No smoke, _idiot._ ” Kuai hissed.

“Stop using ice then!” Tomas paused for a moment, then leaned forward conspiratorially, “Hey, Kuai. How far can you freeze someone from without them noticing? See that woman’s ponytail. Can you get that?”

“Tomas, stop-”

“Go on, I bet you can’t.”

“We’re on a mission, I’m not going to-”

“I bet Bi-Han could do it.”

Kuai tensed his fingers and narrowed his eyes in focus. A thin spray of fractals cast forth from his hand. It did not quite reach the woman, but it did hit the back of her chair and freeze into a thin layer over the whole of the head rest. They looked at each other, sat back abruptly and glanced in opposite directions. Tomas hissed in his ear,

“Hey, Kuai, if she leans back.”

“I know. Shut up. You did this, you put me up to it!”

The murmur of small talk melded with the rumble of the bus engine. The road bent round into a tunnel of overarching trees that spilled dappled shadows through the windows. They sat in stretched silences as the engine groaned up an incline in the road. Kuai saw Tomas’ fingers fidgeting. He was bored. That was never a good sign.

“Hey, Kuai.”

“Shut up.”

“Freeze the floor aisle. The whole lot. Come on. You only live once.”

“What? No!”

“Do it or I’ll make it look like that guy’s ears are smoking.”

“Gods, did you just never get older after about the age five?”

“I’m going to do it. I told you I would-”

They struggled across the back seat as Kuai wrestled Tomas’ arms down. He froze them to the side of his chair. Several heads turned and Kuai gave his best placating smile.

“Bastard.”

“Where are we getting off anyway?”

Tomas shrugged. Kuai glared death at him.

“Alright. Look, the lady said its about forty minutes ride out of town. Stone building, red roof with white walls on a hill, and we can see it from the road.”

“What, as we pass it.”

“Yeah, it-” Tomas stopped and glowered at him, “Wise guy. Look out the window and keep an eye out if you’re worried. Also can you melt this ice, my wrists are going numb.” Kuai ignored him and turned to look out the window. “Melt the ice or I’ll tell Bi-Han you abused your responsibilities as a cryomancer and froze a woman’s head solid.”

“That hasn’t happened yet.”

“It’s only a matter of time. She’s going to lean back sooner or later. I’ll also tell him you were so bad at getting information from a bookseller that you implicated yourself as a Russian KGB spy.”

Kuai stared at him,

“I did?”

“Why do you think she was so pissed off with you?”

“A spy? Why would she think-”

“My friend, have you looked in a mirror recently. Your what – six foot something, a massive scar across your face, built like you beat people up with your bare hands for a living (which you do), and you went in as good as asking for information on a target and claiming to speak Russian. You have the subtlety of wild boar. On caffeine. Looking for food in a village market with-”

“I didn’t actually- whatever...” The details were not important, “I get the picture. Why wasn’t she upset by you?”

“Because I’m a charmer with natural good looks?”

Kuai dug his elbow into him.

“Ow! No fair beating a guy with his hands frozen!”

A man in a cloth cap with a stubble beard turned around and irately reproached them in Serbian. Kuai and Tomas kept a steady silence until he was done and turned back round.

“He thinks your a terrible Russian spy. A disgrace to Russian spies everywhere.”

“Are you looking out for where we’re meant to be getting off?” Kuai shaded his eyes and leaned close to the window. The trees had given way to more a rugged, rocky landscape with steeper meadows decked in darker shadows. Tomas had already started tapping his foot on the floor and twisting uncomfortably in his seat.

“Sit _still_.”

“We need to talk about last night by the way. And I don’t just mean you nearly murdering three people. There was the additional cutlery fiasco at dinner.”

“Tomas, can you pay attention for five minutes-”

“I don’t understand how you can master so many different weapons, and yet fail to grasp how a knife and fork work. You sent food _everywhere_.”

Kuai had the grace to wince,

“I was under the influence of that alcohol you gave me. And what do you mean murder three people? Stop exaggerating I don’t remember anything like that happening.”

“Cutlery has the beautiful lucid simplicity of common sense and logic going for it. And if you _really_ want to know what happened last night-”

“That- was a white building on a hill. Stop the bus! How do we stop it?”

Tomas broke the ice around his wrists with a violent shattering jerk that sounded out like crockery hitting stone. He ran down the aisle and shouted at the driver. The driver shouted back and kept driving. Tomas looked about wildly and slid a hand into the luggage rack. A wisp of smoke filed up from it. Kuai rolled his eyes. Thick black smoke fumed up and out of the luggage to swirl and plume about the bus. The driver slammed on the brakes. Kuai looked down to see that the woman near to where he was standing jolt her head back in the impact. She hit the headrest behind her that he had iced earlier. The cryomancy ice immediately snapped into fractals that collected about her and froze her head solid. He hastily reached a hand out and defrosted her in the commotion and under the cover of the dark smoke wheeling through the air. The bus doors shuddered open, he grabbed their bags and jumped off, along with all the other passengers who now had to be evacuated. The driver was apologising to all his passengers as Kuai made his way to Tomas by the roadside. Tomas had one hand up to shade his eyes and was glancing back the way they came.

“Looks like the place, nice find, Kuai. The first useful thing you’ve done since we left Beijing.” He lightly punched Kuai’s arm. 

“Did you have to-” Kuai looked guiltily behind him as the passengers peered nervously at the bus. The windows were still steamed up with black soot and smoke wafted lazily out of the folded doors. The driver was shaking his head in bewilderment. Kuai was about to reprimand Tomas when he noticed a woman with soaking wet hair touching her temple as if trying to rid her brain of numbing coldness, “Let’s just go,” Kuai whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A longer chapter for you. In general future chapters will be shorter than this, but this didn't split nicely in two. Cheers for the faves and follows - even the smallest comments inspire me to keep going so please feel free to leave one. It makes me feel like I'm not just sitting in my own head writing this crazy stuff. Main themes of this story really get going in this chapter and will intensify from here on out :O


	7. Passage into Twilight

The afternoon beat down on them as they carried heavy bags up the steep track. White walls flashed and glimmered from between the thickets of foliage lining the path. A stiff breeze brought some relief from the heat.

“Think I should scout this place out first?” Kuai turned to Tomas.

“No... they’ll probably have seen us from the road.”

“That or our _smoke signal_.” Kuai growled.

“Hey, it stopped the bus. You want to walk a few extra k in this heat?”

The track wound steep up to a wooden gate that backed onto a loose stone courtyard. Above, a building complex complete with a bright red tile bell tower looked down upon them.

“Did you say this was a library?”

“I said it _had_ a library. I think this is a monastery.”

It looked nothing like the monasteries Kuai Liang was used to,

“What kind?”

Tomas shrugged and aimed for a curved wooden door set in the largest building. It opened before they got there and a straight backed man dressed all in black with a long grey beard glided sedately forth. He bowed slightly to them and spoke in a whispery, husky voice,

“Blessings upon you travellers,” He gave in accented but good English, “You are most welcome here. How may I help you?”

Tomas and Kuai were a little taken aback. Kuai wished they didn’t stink of soot and engine exhaust.

“We – uh. We were hoping we might make use of your library.” Tomas started, “We are... students hoping to write a paper and heard you have very good resources here. Might we stay a night or two here and take a look?”

Kuai had no idea what the practice was with monasteries in this country, and from the look on Tomas’ face neither did he.

“Yes, of course!” The man gestured with a hand for them to follow him around the back of the building. The austere stone buildings gave way to well-cared for gardens all cultivated on a macro level with small trellises and nets propping up an overflow of bright vegetables in bloom. Kuai felt himself relax slightly, though he could not say why. “I am Father Grigory, abbot of this monastery.” The bearded man indicated about him. “We have a small number of guest rooms, you are welcome to use. I shall introduce you to our librarian, Brother Teodor, who can show you our collection – it has quite a reputation in the area. You are welcome to stay as long as you wish. Dinner is served at seven every evening after Vespers, and breakfast is at seven in the morning. We do manual work in between and have prayers three times a day. You are welcome to join us if your studies permit.”

“We have some funding from our – uh – organisation that we can...”

“You are welcome to make a donation to the monastery if you wish,” The abbot smiled, “Or if you have the time and inclination,” He looked the two up and down, “There are a couple of tasks about the monastery that we would greatly appreciate a small hand with and you have a fit look about you...”

Before he could stop himself, Kuai had brought his fist and hand together and given the abbot a traditional bow,

“Thank you, Shifu. You honour us with your kindness. I am more than happy to help you out with any task you need. Your hospitality is gratefully received.”

Tomas shot him a warning look. The abbot smiled however and led them in through a small side door. Kuai shrugged in apology to Tomas behind the abbot’s back. The interior was white washed stone on the ground floor and narrow, untreated wooden corridor’s on the floor above. They were given a brief tour of the guest wing, and shown to small cells. Each had a single bed, a desk and chair and a small icon nailed to the wall. They were left to themselves with assurances that the librarian would stop by to see them shortly.

When the abbot left, Kuai relaxed back on the bed. It was much higher than he was used to at home, but it was hard and plain. He let out a long sigh and, for the first time since he had arrived, felt relaxed.

“This is more like it.” With both doors open and a thin wall between their cells, he could hear Tomas reply from the other room,

“A prison just like the one we’re used too.”

Kuai sat up and padded to Tomas’ door,

“I’m not complaining, I would have gone crazy if we spent another day in that city.”

Tomas had his arms behind his head as he stared up at the blank ceiling,

“Why not go downstairs and tell everyone here that. Whilst you’re at it, you could tell them your real name, occupation, and all the clan’s secrets.”

“What – come on – what makes you think... is this because I was respectful? They just offered us more hospitality than anyone has done in the rest of-”

“You couldn’t scream I’m an out of place assassin from a backwater Chinese village any louder if you tried. I swear godsdammit Kuai Liang, you can move unseen at night like your a fucking shadow but put you in a city in daylight and you might as well have a billboard round your neck.”

“Alright! I’ve got it. I’ll shut up from now on. I’ll just be some silent, disrespectful -”

“Silent will do. Silence or English. No more Mandarin. And no more talking about the mission. We need to act like everything here is a just one stage in a mission, alright? You’re not Kuai Liang here – this is not the Temple – we don’t get to relax – we have aliases, we have work to get on with, everyone here is part of the background, pretend they’re locked doors if you have to – locked doors or furniture, and the information is our target – we are moving silently through this place to hunt down what is necessary then get the fuck out. You need to stop thinking of these people as people. You just called a some Serbian priest _shifu_ in an undercover mission.”

“He _is_ a monk.”

“ _Kuai_.”

“I know. I get it. Although I don’t appreciate your moralising speech right after you made me ice that woman on the bus.”

“That...” Tomas raised a wagging finger, then dropped it, “Was poor self-control on your part. You shouldn’t be pressured by your peers into- _ahksssssssss,_ ” Tomas brought his knees sharply to his chin and clutched his toes. He kneaded them with his palms, trying to melt away the layer of ice Kuai had just frozen onto them. He swore softly.

“Here’s a deal.” Kuai sat on the end of the bed, amused by the ferocity with which Tomas was trying to rub feeling back into his feet, “I’ll play the part you want me to and you can take a lead on setting up some convincing cover for why we’re here, and we take things _my_ speed for looking for the information. No more breezing through and hoping you ask the right questions to the right person. I want the time and space to do some thorough research. I want to be able to look around me, work out where I am and what that Czech woman meant by sending us here, see how pieces slot together, and find anomalies. I like to know every square inch of a house before I enter it. Tactic: ′turn into smoke, go under the front door and hope for the best’, isn’t my idea of a plan.”

“Listen here you little shit-”

“Also, that woman on the plane was right, you really need to clean up your language.”

Tomas folded his arms and glared at him, but agreed. He fixed up names for them, and made Kuai repeated a cover story four times before he was convinced it might hold water. The librarian still had not shown when a bell rang in the corridor. Given the hour, they estimated it must be a summons to dinner.

After two wrong turns that ended in locked doors, they found themselves in a long room with tables stretching to the far end. The room was filled with the sound of a single low voice chanting. Habitted monks all in full black robes and matching beards stood behind wooden chairs, silent and waiting. Tomas and Kuai hastily joined in at the closest row. A monk nearby acknowledge them with a tilt of his head. At some invisible signal, all the monks sat. The chanting continued, and they saw that a single monk remained standing, singing from a book on a stand at the far end. Kuai and Tomas glanced at each other.

The were given a generous bowl of thick pea soup each and a large hunk of brown bread. Kuai noticed with some guilt that the portions he and Tomas had were considerably larger than any of the monastery regulars. He ate his meal silently, content to listen to the strange undulating melodies of the chant and wondering what they spoke of. He and Tomas were offered another wedge of bread half way through the meal, which they both took somewhat sheepishly as the basket did not make rounds on the rest of the table.

The silence persisted all the way through the meal, with only the saddened, sombre intonations of the chant stirring in the room. When all was done, they filed back out the room and Tomas and Kuai found themselves alone in a corridor. They glanced at each other in bewilderment, and Tomas shrugged. Footsteps caught their attuned ears and they turned to see a monk approaching. He had a small pair of glasses perched on his nose, but was otherwise indecipherable to Kuai from anyone else they had seen so far in the monastery.

“Greetings!” He gave in a hushed voice, “I am Brother Teodor, I attend to the books here. Father Grigory tells me you are students, come to study here for research. We are very pleased to have you. If you follow me, I can show you our library.” He led the way down the corridor, “Did you arrive here long ago?” Brother Teodor’s English was good, but the stress in the sentence made it hard for them to pinpoint his exact meaning.

“The monastery? We arrived just a few hours ago,” Tomas answered. Tomas would do all the answering. That was mostly all they had planned out.

“I see, I see. And you like it so far? Where have you come from? Belgrade today?”

“Yes. Today, Belgrade.”

“And your studies? Where do you study?”

“Hong Kong.” Tomas had decided that was safest after Kuai’s introduction earlier.

“A long way to come! And what is it you study?”

“History. Majoring in late twentieth century Eastern European History.”

The fraction of a cloud passed over the monk’s face. It was gone a moment later,

“Well, you’ve come to the right place to study. We have a lot of good books here – difficult to get elsewhere. You read Cyrillic?”

“Yes.”

“We have a big collection, but many languages. Maybe I can help you if you have trouble.”

“Very kind of you,” Tomas said neutrally.

The library was a fairly small one on the wooden top floor. Most of the books looked devotional from what Kuai could see from a first glance. A door led off to one side into another, even smaller room.

“Here is our history section. Not so big compared to your Hong Kong university maybe, but a very unique collection. Here you can find an index, one in English, one in Serbian. Here a catalogue, please check out if you take the books from this room. We like to keep track – monks come here to choose a book for reading after supper.”

“What were they singing during supper?” Kuai asked, and only remembered when Tomas glared at him that he was not meant to be speaking.

“Ah, we have the Psalms over supper. We listen and think on the words as we eat. First time in a monastery, is it?”

Kuai opened his mouth to reply, but saw Tomas slicing his finger across his throat just out of the monk’s sight.

“Uh...” He tried to work out which answer Tomas thought was more problematic, “...yes?”

Brother Teodor seemed not to notice.

“Well, I shall leave you to your evening. If there is anything else I can do, please let me know.” It sounded like a polite way to end the communication, but Kuai took him at his word, much to the irritation of Tomas who was death glaring behind.

“Actually, yes. Do you have a telephone we might use?”

The monk smiled slightly and led them downstairs into a lobby. When he had gone, Tomas broke into furious whispers.

“Kuai, dammit we had a plan! There’s-”

“No Mandarin, Tomas, remember?” Kuai smiled at him sardonically. All his humoured thinned out into the straight tight line of his lips as he picked up the landline receiver to dial home. His fingers hovered over the numbers. It was an older telephone, the kind with a curly wire and a turning dial pad. “Tomas... could you-?”

“Nuh uh. No way am I making the call. You owe me one after nearly pulling another royal screw up. Anyway, if I report in he’ll know you’re hiding from him and assume the worst. Better just get it over with.”

Kuai sighed and looked forlornly at the phone. He took a deep breath and dialled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things gonna get a little darker and more serious for our troublesome friends. More Bi-Han up next. Thanks again for the support both on FanFiction and A03. I took a break to write some Sareena and Bi-Han angst in a one-shot story and am back to keep updating more chapters of this hurtling train of disaster. As always, comments very much appreciated, thanks for all the kind words so far!


	8. Shadows on Hallowed Earth

“We are more stealthful than the night.”

“And more deadly than the dawn.”

“Confirm location.”

“Tundra and Smoke both just outside of Belgrade.” The name of the place left him as he focussed on trying not to forget it. “In... a monastery.” He should have said following a lead. Or at least gone for explaining that there was a library here. “With a library. The library has many-”

“Enough.”

Kuai Liang stopped short. His eyes wandered to Smoke who was hovering at his elbow. They both exchange a look. It was a look that said they knew their progress was slow going at best.

“When I want a report I will ask for one.”

“As you say, Sub-Zero.”

“Estimated amount of time to spend in this monastery.”

“It... The exact amount of time depends on how quickly we find the information we are looking for. I would think not more than a couple of days.” He added hastily.

“Information. So you have not yet located the whereabouts of your target.”

“No, Sub-Zero.”

“And what exactly have you done, Tundra?”

Kuai Liang felt the bridge of his nose heat up with indignation. He swallowed and held in his frustration, taking a moment to breathe out away from the speaker, before he answered.

“We have located and moved into a new base of operations from which we estimate we will soon be able to extract up-to-date intelligence on our target. We have set up identities here under which we hope to operate without drawing attention.”

“What identities? Did Smoke oversee this?”

“Yes, Sub-Zero.”

“Good. Is he present? Pass the telephone to him.”

Kuai handed the receiver over, grinding his molars together as he did so. Tomas was all business and efficiency on the phone line. His answers sounded like they were to reasonable, sensible questions. When he hung up, Kuai rounded on him,

“He always asks you questions that you can answer! It’s not fair that he always asks me closed, accusatory questions pointing out how I haven’t done enough!”

“Shh.” Tomas glanced around them, then indicated that they should head upstairs, “He just holds you to high expectations. Rest assured, he has none for me.”

“I don’t _want_ his high expectations! How can I perform well when I have to look over my shoulder the whole time, giving him moment-to-moment updates?! Maybe if he wanted more from me he could have gone out of his way to use the Temple resources to give us more on this lead!”

“Kuai, we need to be quiet now. Forget Bi-Han. If it’s getting to you this much, I can do the reports. We need to keep to our aliases from now on. Come on, breathe with me. What’s your name?”

“Charles Luo.”

“Studying?”

“Modern European History. My current essay is on Serbian cultural identity. In my spare time I like swimming, cricket and painting. Except I know fuck all about any of these because all my Grandmaster taught me was how to slit throats.”

“Kuai-”

“What even is cricket? At least if I said something like, boxing, I could vaguely talk about it.”

“Stick with the cover. Lets head to the library now, we might be able to stay in all night and make good headway on looking.”

“I’m going to bed.” Tomas looked like he was about to protest, but Kuai held up a hand, “When I get up tomorrow I will begin. I want a fresh start and a clear head. When I work I want to do it well, not with the ghost of Bi-Han keeping me up all night because he would do it better.”

Tomas lifted his hands in defeat.

“You do what you want, Kuai. Stick to the cover, only talk English and let me know if you find something. Otherwise, knock yourself out and do things however you see fit.”

They parted ways in silence in the corridor. Tomas went on toward the library while Kuai entered his room and shut the door. He stood still for a moment, willing himself not to follow Tomas and start work immediately. He would be in a better frame of mind tomorrow. He knew this, but letting go jarred within him. He sat down on the floor and folded his legs. He breathed in slowly through his nose and out through his mouth. In his mind he moved through a kata, imagining his limbs following the twists and turns of the familiar patterns, letting his thoughts relax into the shapes and flow of the form. He would always imagine the kata taking place in the Temple courtyard in winter, as the snow fell silently and all other life was gone, perhaps to bed, perhaps just simply absent. Alone, he was at peace.

When he at last opened his eyes, he saw the evening light falling on the strange gold figure painted on the icon above his bed. The icon was small next to enormous great white blank of the wall, like a lone figure in the Lin Kuei snow. He got up, shoulders finally shedding some of their stress. He lay himself down on the bed and mildly wondered if cricket was named after the lucky insect, and if writing counted as painting, and if he blew his cover, how many of the quiet monks here he would have to assassinate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter with some sulky Kuai Liang today. Next he'll get on with some actual research and tell you what this is all about. Thanks again for all the support here and elsewhere.


	9. To Know My Enemy

When he entered the library Tomas was packing up. The assassin looked exhausted. Dark rings were under his eyes and the lids drooped with thick folds. As he moved he swayed slightly. He pointed a finger toward one of the stacks of shelves.

“Don’t bother with that bookcase.” He then sloped out of the room toward the cells they had been leant.

Kuai sighed and shook his head. He looked at the shelf in question, then scanned the rest of the room. Tomas was good at jumping in and taking things out fast. There were times when that was not necessarily a desired approach however.

Kuai begun by moving away from the history section and turning his attention to the larger library. He spent the morning scanning the devotional works they kept here, getting a feel for the kind of ideals and attitudes that these people lived by. He thumbed through the library records, noting which titles were taken out most often, then selected them and browsed through to see what it was about these particular volumes that appealed to his hosts.

They were a quiet but determined lot, he decided. Their devotion reminded him of the peaceful monasteries he had visited at home, but there was an edge to the dedication here that came of being moulded in fire. Many of the books were on surviving in an era whose modernities left behind the more traditional ideals held to here. Kuai could sympathise with that. Others though, were on standing fast in the face of persecutions, on living through the aftermath of violence perpetrated against them, on still trying to live by tenets of hospitality and compassion in a world that took advantage of such generosity. Much like he was doing. He pushed that thought away. There were complicated books struggling through the ethics of various difficulties left in the wake of various wars and tensions all of which seemed to extend their grip not just to this monastery but through the region and entire area. He was vaguely beginning to understand why their first day in the city had been such a minefield of clashing cultures: that seemed to be a fairly accurate summary of the history of this place.

He worked through two bells that rang out somewhere in the long halls and continued on into the early afternoon. At some point he moved from the main library to the smaller one. Glancing over the shelves Tomas had scoured during the night. He passed his finger over the spines, reading those that he could and pausing over those with heavy creases in them. He pulled up the records again. This section was much less visited. It seemed the monks who lived here were content to spend most of their time reading their spiritual essays. He pulled out a book in English and searched the index for the name of their target.

By all appearances, their target, a man called Ranu Kasun, was the ordinary sort. A rural childhood, thin opportunities, a broad but not shining education; Kuai had read histories like these on almost every target he had to research. Unremarkable child feels hard done by, walks down the path of mediocrity until an opportunity and the lure of something better drags them head first into something sticky. Then the Lin Kuei were called in to clear up the mess. _Except sticky is an understatement for you_. He scours the numbers of attributed deaths and atrocities, the attempts to locate this man and hold him accountable, and notes the way he always slips out of his hunters’ fingers. _Someone got tired of waiting for the law to catch up with you._ The slipping away interests him. It interests him because he wonders how someone so apparently contemptible and high profile can blend in and fade away into a crowd. _Who would shield someone like you?_

The reported sightings of Ranu Kasun were fairly frequent, but always unconfirmed. A few times a year a report would crop up, only to vanish before anyone on the case could get close. Facts kept becoming hazy and witnesses would closet up or disappear. The sightings had stepped up considerably in the last half decade, with sightings in Belgrade coming thick and fast until... nothing. The last unofficial sighting he could see was three years ago, on a rainy day in April in north east Belgrade. The man seemed to have an uncanny habit of disappearing in public. _...suggesting he is hiding in plain sight... or was._ The trail was stone cold from what he could tell. A popular journal on international politics told him this was the longest period of silence without a claimed sighting of Ranu Kasun. The reporter went so far as to suggest that Kasun may have gone for good – left Serbia and entered hiding so deep he might be out of the reach of the law forever. _Maybe that’s what tipped someone over the edge. I’d be tempted to hire the Lin Kuei if someone like that was rumoured to be free from justice forever..._

He pulled out a map of the city and surrounding area, plotting rumoured sightings of the last ten years against locations on the map. His target must have had a fairly cushy civilian life for ten or more years, was all he could think, then he’d pooled his resources and what? Changed his disguise? Moved city? Moved country? To make such a dangerous relocation – surely someone had to have stuck their neck out on the line. That again brought him back to _who_ and _why?_ He sighed. He was close and yet a million miles away.

Tomas joined him as the shadows grew long,

“Any luck?”

“Any luck what?”

“Finding what you’re looking for, dumbass.”

Kuai looked at him from over the pages of a book,

“Well, I don’t know what _you_ were looking for, but I’m making what I would call progress.”

“Are you making what Bi-Han would call progress?”

The confidence sapped from Kuai’s face and his expression fell.

“Sorry,” Tomas started, “That was low. I only just woke up. What have you found?”

Kuai snapped his book shut defensively,

“ _Nothing._ ” He gave coldly. When he saw Tomas’ face crumble in remorse he added, “Yet.”

“Well... what am I supposed to report this evening?!”

Kuai let slip a slightly cruel smile,

“I suppose _you’ll_ have to be the bearer of bad news for once.”

He set the book down and got up.

“Where are you going?”

Kuai stretched,

“Taking a break. Sitting around all day makes me-”

“Grouchy?”

Kuai glared at him,

“Tired. I’m going to see if I can help out with anything around here.”

“OK. What books have you searched? I don’t want to double up on resources here.”

Kuai raised an eyebrow. Tomas seemed to have a very different idea of research to him. It would needlessly upset him if Kuai admitted to mostly searching through the volumes Tomas had been scouring all the night.

“Try the ones written in Cyrillic. Pretty sure I didn’t go through them.”

“Right. Oh yeah, I forgot.”

Kuai made to leave.

“Oh and Kuai?”

He turned back round.

“Don’t do any of that stupid shit you do sometimes. Like suddenly getting a weird bout of heroism and jeopardising important stuff so that you can – I don’t know – help rescue kittens from trees or whatever it is you do that winds the Grandmaster up so much. And for gods’ sake stop calling all the monks _shifu,_ this isn’t fucking China.”

Kuai Liang glared at him but left silently. On his way downstairs he made sure to pass Tomas’ room and freeze the pillow in his pillow case with a thick layer of ice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomas probably just flicks through all the books looking for size 19 bold type face font saying 'your next target is here'. Kuai's got all the nuance when it comes research. Tomas is not wrong that he also has all the grouch though. More chapters coming soon. Let me know if this becomes difficult to follow at all. This genre's a little different to what I'm used to writing, so constructive criticism also welcome :)


	10. To Tread in Thin Places

Early evening was roving orange with dark green shadows. Standing trellises hung with climbing plants had closed their buds for the day. In the deep undergrowth of bushy leaves in beds, ripe vegetables bulged and shone in the winks of light that caught them. Kuai had to brush past the luscious growth as he moved. He glanced in concern at the creases he made in the leaves he passed. They crumpled into broken shapes in the wake of his strong movements and fluttered to the ground. He stopped and stared, wondering at the destruction he brought without even intending to.

“It’s Charles, isn’t it?”

Kuai looked up to see a black habited monk with long brown hair and a curly beard of auburn shot with flecks of grey.

“I... uh... yes.” He cursed Tomas mentally.

“Pleased to meet you. I used to know a Charles myself back in the day.” Kuai shifted the leaves he had crushed out of sight with a subtle foot. Now that he had a moment to collect himself, he realised this man did not have the same kind of accent as the others around here. Kuai did not know enough to place it though.

“You did?”

“Yes, yes, back in my university days. Knew a Charles. Very scatty fellow. He’d put down a cup of coffee and never find it again. Had an office so full of manuscripts – one had to swim to find him in there. Very bright though, very clever. It’s history you study, is that right, Charles?”

“Yes.” Kuai didn’t like how confident this man sounded. He cursed Tomas again for not giving him an easier cover identity to play. The monk extended a hand, indicating that they should take the overgrown path between the vegetable patches. Kuai moved sideways along it to try and minimise the destruction he caused. He had to duck to get between a shed and the trunk of a grape vine. White green clusters of grapes bounced across his forehead as he tried to dodge the low branches.

“I read history myself at Balliol,” The monk continued, oblivious to Kuai’s difficulties, “Mostly early medieval in my later years but I did a fair share of modern too. Are you post-Enlightenment or pre?”

Kuai unwound loose vines from his hair,

“I uh...” There were peas growing amidst the grape vines with very small tight curled tendrils that had snaked their way into his hair and were tugging at his scalp as he tried to walk. He jerked his head and snapped them off. _Screw this,_ he thought. “I actually just switched to history, so its all a bit new for me still.”

“Oh,” The monk didn’t look back, but he sounded a little crestfallen, “What did you switch from?”

“Early Chinese military strategy.” Tomas was going to kill him.

“Oh.” The talkative monk finally seemed to fall quiet. After a long quiet, broken only by the distant sound of birds chirruping and wood being chopped, the monk said, “What’s that... Sun Tzu?”

“Among others.” Kuai sighed internally, finally feeling relaxed.

“That’s all... rather violent isn’t it?”

“Not all of it, no,” Kuai was genuinely caught up in his own interest. “After all, in the _Art of War_ , Sun Tzu notes that the greatest military thinker must be one who has perfected meditation and has an enlightened understanding of the Taoist way.”

“Are you Daoist yourself?”

This was fast becoming one of the most personal conversations Kuai had ever had. He started backtracking in his head in panic as he thought of the inevitable reprimands of his teachers and brother. A smaller, more defiant part of him, the one that had taken over at his last mission debriefing and earned him the Grandmaster’s ire, stood firm and rooted.

“I find great value in the silence of mediation.”

“A value that stretches from old Constantinople all the way through the Eastern continent.” The old abbot Kuai had met on his first day materialised from around a thicket. His smile creased his leathery face. Kuai brought his palm and fist together and bowed. The monk next to him bowed in his own fashion. “It is a great honour to shelter a culture so different from our own, and yet so similar.” The abbot smiled and Kuai found it infectious. From the corner of his eye he noted the monk next to him stiffen a little. His face had a slight tenseness to it, as if he perhaps might not agree with that sentiment. Kuai decided to keep an eye on him.

“I’ve come to offer my assistance to you.” Kuai said to the abbot, “If there is anything I might do in exchange for you hospitality, please name it.”

The abbot hitched up his black robes, and stepped along the weeded path, “Well, we do have a log pile issue! It might not look like it, but in Serbia we have terrible winters – very wet and cold. In early spring our log shelter blew down. So in a dry summer we must rebuild it again or have wet logs from autumn through all winter!”

The sound of logs being split grew closer. Kuai suddenly hoped they didn’t ask him to chop wood. He did not want to see their faces when he held a weapon. He did not want them to see the ease with which he could make a blade cut and obey his every whim. He needed the anonymity of whatever they thought he was – of whatever it was that meant they talked to him like he was a one of those normal people one might find walking down a street, running a bookshop, living one of those lives he only ever caught glimpses of.

They didn’t ask him to chop wood. They wanted him to help lift split tree trunks to head height to cover over the top of their shelter. He was happier than he had been in a long time. It was easy to lose himself in the manual labour and listen to the lilting voices of monks chatting away in Serbian, or the occasional half murmured chant. Even the old abbot was trying to help out, though the monks tried to stop him and scolded him for worrying his ageing limbs.

“Very rude, they are.” The abbot told Kuai. Kuai smiled a little shyly, stomach curling as he thought of what would happen to any Lin Kuei who spoke to their Grandmaster that way.

“Who is the monk with the strange accent who walked with me earlier?”

“Ah, Brother Athanasios. From England. He likes you, I can tell.” The old man smiled. Kuai did not return it this time.

“And what about Brother Teodor, the librarian, where is he from?”

“Serbian born and bred.” The abbot smiled. “The newest addition to our little monastic life.”

“Newest?” The hunter in him had already banished any improprieties he had let himself fall into earlier and his attention snapped immediately into scavenging mode.

“Yes indeed, only three years amongst us. But he has taken his vows now, and time means little when all are equal under heaven. He helped our little library grow so that now many come from miles to visit it. When he joined he brought many books with him also. All those history books you are here for? All thanks to Brother Teador.”

Kuai’s eyes lit with the information, but he kept his interest bottled. He tilted his head and returned to raising logs. His mind was turning with thoughts set off on trains of their own after that. He found it more difficult to play down his own strength and lift one end of a trunk to the same height of the fellow monks he was helping. In the end they sensed his frustration and backed away, letting him heave them alone, taking the weight from the centre and lifting from his thighs. It had been days since he had had any good exercise and the strain freed up his mind to work through its corridors, narrowing down possibilities and cross-referencing them with the knowledge he had garnered earlier from the library. He heaved log after log, muscles tightening and working as sweat ran down his back in thin lines. He smiled in grim satisfaction when he was done. When he turned around though, the abbot looked less approachable. Kuai even thought he saw a wistful sadness on his face. He had little time to spend caring about this however. His thoughts were only on his mission.

“Will you be joining us for supper, Charles?” That was the academic, Athanasios, from earlier.

Kuai blinked. He calmed his frustrated heart and cooled his burning intent that was already halfway back to the library.

“Of course,” He said peaceably.

He followed them as a small bell rung out in the vegetable garden. His footsteps were gentle among the plants as his eyes hunted through the ranks of monks filing inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I set this story in Serbia because I knew I was heading there so could do research. I got too excited about writing this story so haven't even got there yet. Anyway I head off later today so have a chapter now because I will be away for a few days in actual Belgrade. Keep safe friends and thanks for all the continued support.


	11. Predatory

At dinner Tomas looked miserable. They ate in silence to the sound of the chant filling the quiet hall with its lamenting melody. Kuai caught him by the arm in the corridor as they exited after eating.

“Everything OK?”

“No.” The young man’s flyaway silver hair shifted over his eyes. Kuai peered beneath it to look at him. Tomas pulled away and headed towards the stairs. “We’ve got fuck all to show for today. If the international police couldn’t catch this guy in the last fifteen years, how are we supposed to find him in a matter of days?”

Kuai glanced at him,

“Give it time. I have a good feeling about this place. We’ll find what we need.”

“How do I make that sound good in a report to Prince Perfect.”

Kuai raised an eyebrow. Tomas relented,

“Ungh, if they’d only give us a location like normal, we could get this damn thing over and done with.”

“You know they sent us on this mission deliberately,” Kuai had the sense to close the door to Tomas’ room as he followed him into it, “They want us to learn to hunt.”

“You make us sound like godsdamn lion cubs. I wouldn’t mind if it was _actual_ hunting, but all this reading is making my eyes hurt.”

“Poor Tomas and his uneducated eyes.”

“Hey, codenames only. New codenames, I mean. Cover names. Whatever they’re called. Hey, do you think these guys ever eat anything but lentils, I was hoping to get away from strict temple diets not walk into worse ones.”

Kuai was glad to see Tomas’ mood had at least lightened a little.

“I’d kill for some more of the pastries we had in Belgrade. And a long draught of ale.”

“You’d kill for less.”

“I’d kill you for nothing if it stopped you being such a killjoy.” Tomas lay down on his bed, “You’d probably come back from the grave and haunt me with your moralising rhetoric and and seditious plans.”

“What’s this!? Seditious? I’ve never done anything seditious in my life!”

Tomas looked at him through hooded eyes.

“Is this the part where we skip over talking about your last mission and move back into light-hearted banter?”

“Shut up, _Ben Ma_. Ben sounds much more like a real name than _Charles_. Why couldn’t I be Ben?”

“You look more like a Charles. You can be Charlie if you like. Adorable Charlie Luo- _eerrugh!_ ” Tomas leapt up, hand clasping the back of his head. He prodded his pillow, which was sopping wet on the outside. He twitched the cover away from it to reveal the solid ice behind it. “ _Kuai Liang you bastard!”_

“It’s _Charlie_ , I believe.” Kuai backed away from the advancing Tomas as a grin spilled onto his face.

“I swear to the gods you cryomancers are going to kill me before I’m twenty-five!”

“I’m going to head to the library.” Kuai felt for the door handle behind him.

“No you damn won’t, not ‘til I’ve beaten my revenge into you.”

“Need to be quiet in the monastery, _Ben_ ,” Kuai gave sweetly, “Don’t want to get chucked out and have to explain that to Bi-Han.”

Kuai opened the door and ducked out.

“Just you wait, you icy bastard, I’ll get you for this.”

Kuai closed the door and headed up the corridor. He met the librarian, Teodor, walking towards him.

“Everything, alright?” The monk had suspicion in his black, knit eyebrows.

“Yes, yes indeed.” Kuai gave a faint smile. But his eyes moved quickly up and down, taking stock of the librarian. His initial overview of the man had been that he looked and dressed the same as every person here. Now that he studied him, Kuai saw that his thick, almost black hair was styled after the same fashion as his peers, but was shorter – had less years’ growth on it. His eyes matched his own for curiosity and were sharp under the small glasses that pinched his nose.

“I thought I heard... disturbance? Someone hurt?” The librarian studied him back.

“Oh. No. Well, Ben stubbed his toe. Very clumsy, he is. I will go to the library now, yes?” Kuai’s English was poor in the spontaneous moment. He gave a thin smile and moved passed him up the corridor. He paused at the monk’s shoulder, close enough for the height difference and the thick muscle on his body to be painfully noticeable in the awkward exchange, “Nice collection you have in library by the way. Are all these history books a recent addition to the monastery?”

The monk hesitated, now having to tilt his head back a long way to look Kuai in the eye,

“Recent? Fairly recent... some are books I used to own. Others are gifts to the community here... Something in particular you are looking for, Mr Luo?” Brother Teador’s expression smoothed behind his glasses, but a frown persisted somewhere in his brow, “I couldn’t help noticing you were plotting some locations on a map of Belgrade. Belgrade is my home, perhaps I can help you?”

“Very observant, I mean, considerate of you.” Kuai let the comment slide out dryly and added, “but I think I will manage. You and your donors must have had quite an unsurpassed interest in recent political history.” Kuai realised he had gone from studying the man’s character and appearance to noting his weak points and considering the angle needed to penetrate the man’s throat silently. The man shrunk under the predatory inspection and the slight accusation in Kuai’s tone. Kuai smiled but it was more a baring of his teeth. The monk retreated from the sight and hurried on down the corridor.

When Kuai reached the library he shut the door quickly behind him. He turned and faced it, resting his palm and forehead on its cool wood. It was getting to him. Spending this much time amongst those he still had to consider disposable. He’d never had to walk in their spaces before, drink their drinks, eat their food, sleep in their beds, live in their halls. He did not even have any evidence and he had already begun sizing up prey for a kill. He’d just looked a man in the face, a man whose name he knew, whose hospitality he’d taken, and he’d thought about how to kill him. Really kill him. He’d looked into his eyes and thought only of how to make those lights go out.

He breathed shakily, surprised at his own instincts and how keen they were. They needed to crack on with this case. They were already too close to all of this. And he should have kept more closely to his cover earlier. Tomas was right. He shouldn’t be Kuai Liang in this place. He couldn’t let Kuai Liang interact with these people. They were shadows in a shadow world. They were not people. He cringed to hear himself even think that. In a bizarre moment, he suddenly wished it was him delivering the report to Bi-Han tonight. He wanted to hear that voice. He wanted its severity reminding him what he was and what his duty was. He wanted to feel that comfortable sullen rebellion in his stomach that always, in the end, curbed and did what it was told.

He drove his chaotic thoughts away from him when he caught sight of the lending ledger open on the desk. Maybe Tomas had finally started using more than a brute force method. He leaned over. It was not open on last page, but was flipped some pages into the past. _Nearly three years._ He ran a finger over the pencil marked entries. _Nothing unusual_. He paused near the bottom of the page. One entry was scrubbed out. He ran his finger over the empty space. It was rough under the pad of his touch. He brought his finger up to the light for inspection. _Recently erased._ He pulled over a desk lamp and set up the ledger page before the light. He winced at it. Pencil marking on the other side of the page eroded anything intelligible he might have been able to make out. He felt his frustration grow. He ran his fingers over the thin indentations left on the page where the book title should be, but they melded quickly with those made overleaf. In the third box along though he could make out a reference number. He jotted it down. He moved quickly between the different shelves. He narrowed down his search to the history room. He scoured the rows looking for where the repeating letters matched the one he held. His fingers stopped at a shelf them moved quickly along, counting down the books until... A space. He touched a finger to the dust free location where his number volume should be. His eyes hooded.

He turned and moved back to the ledger. He flipped it to the most recent page and looked down its list. His number was nowhere on the page. He turned back the pages and went through the last few weeks. Nothing. He ground his teeth in frustration. The book, whatever it was, was gone from the shelf, gone from the ledger, and gone from Kuai’s reach. Reluctantly, he admitted a dead end. He let the anomaly go, and reverted back to the line of thinking that he had been working on earlier in the day.

While helping the monks in the garden, he had been grinding through some ideas in his head. His interest had been peaked when the old abbot said that the librarian, Brother Teador, had joined the monastery three years ago. He knew his excitement to be premature, but three years ago was the last time anyone had sighted his target, Ranu Kasun. Kuai’s whole afternoon had been spent looking for anything that might have happened in Belgrade three years ago to indicate how or why Kasun had disappeared. Was a man joining a monastery an anomaly? Brother Teador certainly had a curious past interest that involved collecting recent political commentaries. And then there was that befuddling question from before – who would help a man like Ranu Kasun?

While hauling tree trunks around outside, it had come to Kuai that perhaps the kind of person to help Kasun, would be the same kind that might believe so strongly in a life of mercy and compassion, that they might dedicate their life to a monastery. An idealist – someone young – someone already well versed in the complexities and nuances of the tumultuous history of this land. The Czech bookshop owner had sent them here very specifically. Might this have been why? Was it so much of a stretch to suspect Brother Teador had a hand in this? All he had to be was a little naïve, in the right time at the right place – a monastery relatively isolated from the eyes of the law. And would it be seen as such a terrible thing to help a man like Kasun when one had a faith like these monks did – a faith of second chances? And after all was not Kasun a fellow countryman to Brother Teador and who knew the circumstances that an encounter might have taken place under? Might a contrite, charasmatic ex-general not sway an idealist truly dedicated to second chances?

The lead was nothing solid. It was definitely nothing solid. Anyone could have helped Kasun – he had been popular in a political party in his day, he had influential family and friends – even a nephew in charge of an army. And yet that instinct in Kuai – the hunter instinct that had already started taking Teador apart with his eyes – urged him that he was not wrong with this line of inquiry. _I need evidence. I_ want _evidence. I don’t want to let this instinctive part of me rule how I kill. I want someone to hold me back, to keep making me ask questions until there is certainty. I don’t trust myself to do this thoroughly and properly. Some part of me has already decided that Teador is mine to hunt, mine to get to the bottom of. I can’t let this get in the way of doing things rigorously._

Kuai looked down at the slip of paper he had written the book reference on. He folded it up and placed it in the pocket of his civilian jacket. He sighed and looked out of the window. A keen half moon was mild yellow among the twists of curling clouds. He narrowed his eyes. _If I could just set my unfounded suspicions to rest..._ He went to a far door at the opposite end of the library. It rattled when he turned the handle. Locked. The door frame leant over the crack hiding the lock mechanism. He went to the window shutters. They opened easily under his touch. He stood in their open mouth, a light breeze brushing through his hair. His eyes moved over the darkened shapes of the gardens below. He studied each shadow, and plotted each movement, checking that the rustle of foliage obscured no figures. He stepped nimbly out onto the sill in one swift, fluid movement. His fingers found purchase on the wooden exterior of the frame and his toes kept his weight as he stood, stomach pressed flat against the exterior wall of the building. He took in his new environment. A darkened window on his level was a few metres away. Above him, a rickety gutter nestled under the eaves of the roof tiles. He pushed his fingers under the gutter until he found the rim of the stonework beneath. He swung his body out under that grip. He inched along the side of the monastery, holding his body weight with just his fingers.

A voice murmured below him. He froze, holding himself perfectly still. A door opened beneath him, mellow orange light spilled out onto the paving stones and two voices pulled out of indistinct murmurs into audible sounds. Their tones were light though he knew none of their words. Kuai felt a slight tremble in his hands and wrinkled his face in disgust at his weakness. He tightened his grip. The monks below chatted in the doorway. They seemed content to do so for such a time that Kuai decided he was more at risk of dropping on them than he was of attracting their attention by moving. He put out a leg, pointing his toes and testing for the sill of the next window. Out of reach. He shimmied over a little further. And now... his toe found a grip and he pushed his weight onto it. He sidestepped through with his other foot, turning swiftly back into the house, and holding the new window still with aching hands. He was breathing hard but he kept it noiseless. He crouched in the frame and gave the shutters a slight push. They bellied slightly at the pressure, revealing a latch between them. He frowned. He glanced down at the talking monks below. He held two fingers together and closed his eyes. When he opened them again a thin perfectly rectangular spindle of ice was between his thumb and forefinger. He slipped this between the windows and opened the latch. He stepped in easily and closed the windows behind him.

He was in a small cell, not unlike those that he and Tomas had been given. A single bed, plain walls adorned with a single icon, a small desk with a few books scattered upon it. No other personal affects that he could see. He pushed a hand through the books on the desk. No number that matched his reference. _It was pure base instinct. Not a real lead_. He tried to shrug off the simultaneous feeling of relief and disappointment. _But Teador cowered under scrutiny. I could see it in his eyes. Like an animal running to hide._ He pushed away that line of thought. _He rubbed it out of the ledger. He rubbed a book out that he brought to the library three years ago and only checked out once. And he rubbed it out today. Today, after having seen I was cross-referencing locations in Belgrade_. That was a line of thinking he could put faith in. His hands skated over the table surface. He checked the pillowcase on the bed, and the mattress, and the floor beneath. He even checked the painted icon on the wall. He turned his attention back to the table. Most of the titles were in Cyrillic. He struggled to make sense of the shapes of the words. They seemed more like patterns to him. Patterns that... He pulled two of the books next to each other. He ran his nails under ever word, checking them against each other. _The same. Why would he need..._ He flicked the jacket cover off the left book. Whatever the book beneath said, it was not the same as the cover. He shed the cover and picked up the incriminating book. Turning to its inner page revealed the reference number from Kuai’s pocket. He only had a fraction to revel in his own prowess before his eyes widened. A handwritten message was looped over half the inner page, its curls nearly obscuring the title beneath. It was all in Cyrillic, but Kuai knew enough to know the name of his target, Ranu Kasun, finishing off the message in an ink flourish signature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter is clear. I re-did it several times to try and make it as lucid as possible. If anyone is confused or unsure what's going on, please let me know by private message or in the comments and I will try and address any confusions people have by editing this chapter. I'm also back from Belgrade! And I might edit a couple of the descriptions in earlier chapters now that I have a better feel for the city. Torture warning for the next chapter. I will put the warning in a note at the front of the chapter in case any casual reader's miss it.


	12. By Any Means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Chapter contains a torture scene.

“ _Tomas!_ ”

The response was garbled.

“ _Tomas!_ ”

“Piss off.”

“I’m coming in.”

Kuai slunk into Tomas’ cell and closed the door behind him. The room was dark but he could make out Tomas half hunched in the corner of his bed, the blanket piled up around him. Kuai paused,

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like. I’m sulking.” He blew hair out of his face and pulled his arms around his knees.

“Did... did you make the report?” Kuai had a sinking feeling that was what this was about.

“Your brother really laid into me.”

“We knew he would; he just hates slow progress, it’ll be fine once we-”

“It’s not _fine_ , Kuai Liang. You might forget it, but Sub-Zero is a damn scary guy to be on the wrong side of.”

“I don’t ‘forget it’.” Kuai said flatly and with a little coldness, “I am reminded frequently of-”

“He wouldn’t really hurt you, Kuai. Not like the way he would anyone else if he thought they stood between him and the next rung on the ladder of success.”

“ _Tomas_ ,” Kuai was genuinely taken aback and affronted, “He’s a little ambitious, that doesn’t mean he’d start turning on his fellow Lin Kuei. You do him a dishonour speaking like this.”

“Blind as always. Only ever seeing the good side of people. When are you going to-”

“I have a lead.”

They both locked eyes in the darkness. The night air pushed faintly at the single shutter in the room making it click softly in irregular nudges. Tomas sighed and let the argument slide. He switched on a small side lamp on a rough cut bedside cabinet.

“An entry in the library records was recently erased. This is the book it referred to. I found it in the librarian’s room with a different dust jacket on.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“Take a look at the inscription.”

Tomas opened the book. His eyebrows climbed steadily.

“Can you read it?”

Tomas shook his head,

“The letters but not the language. I think its Serbian. If I had a dictionary I could get some sense out of it. Its addressed to ‘Davor’, but its certainly signed ‘Ranu Kasun’.”

Kuai shook his head, his eyes crinkling in contemplation.

“I want to question him.”

“The librarian? What are you thinking?”

“That something suspicious is going on. That he might be involved with our target’s last disappearance.”

“Because of a _book_?” He could hear the frustration and hurt in Tomas’ voice. Bi-Han must have really upset him, Kuai realised. His heart went out to his friend.

“Perhaps. Lets find out.”

“What, _now_? Are you crazy – if we start asking questions now, we’re finished here – our cover will be blown!”

“He hid the book for a reason. We need him now before he realises we’re onto anything.”

“If there _is_ anything to be onto.”

“Tomas, I have a feeling about this. A good feeling.”

He could see Tomas’ eyes were dark, angry and nervous.

“Alright,” He relented. He reached for his canvas bag and puled out his roll of knives.

“No. No knives.”

“What? But I thought you wanted to interrogate this guy? He’s hardly going to see us and start saying ‘Welcome good Lin Kuei assassins – I’m involved in and international cover-up-’”

“I’ll use ice. There’ll be no marks. Bi-Han showed me a couple of things.”

Tomas’ shifted uncomfortably. Kuai ignored that,

“We need to hurry up. I left the librarian’s door open. We can lock it from the inside. Bring the book.”

They did not speak when they entered the corridor. Tomas closed his door silently. Their footsteps were inaudible as they moved toward the library. The square of their shoulders bent to the flat of the wall and all their activities were reduced into absolute quiet. They were fluid as they entered the library. Dim moonlight spilt upon the bookshelves, sending slices of cream light up the dark shapes of the room. Kuai pushed open the end door into the librarian’s cell. Tomas glanced around it as Kuai bent to relocking the door. The cell was small and offered little cover. An elongated alcove gave the room a second window to the opposite side of the house. It wasn’t much, but it was the only place they might stand without immediately being in view when the door opened. Kuai nodded when he was done. Tomas pulled the desk chair out in front of them and pointed to himself. Kuai nodded again. They retreated to the alcove and waited.

Two minutes. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Wisps of purple clouds folded over the edges of the egg white moon. They held a perfect silence with regulated breathing. Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes. Silence. Twenty-one. Footsteps in the library.

Kuai felt his heartbeat slow. A slight tingling crawled down his forearms. A lazy ease swam through his body. An eagerness twitched his eyes.

A key fumbled in the lock. A murmur of frustration and the sound of metal _tink_ ing as it hit the wooden floor. The rustle of fabric. The new sound of the key sliding into the lock, the slight _click_ as the mechanism slid back. The handle twisted and the door pushed inwards. A black robed monk stepped in, turned and reclosed the door behind him. _Why do they never look around. Why do they never notice_. It was almost too easy. The monk was setting his key down on the desk and placed a hand on the books there, barely a few feet away from where Tomas and Kuai stood stock still, but plainly in view to one who simply looked. The monk set down his glasses and sighed.

Tomas moved. He flicked his wrist and spun a thin whirl of smoke into the air with only the effort of casual fingers. The monk doubled over coughing as he inhaled the black smoke wreathes. Tomas reappeared behind him in an instant. A sudden jerk of Tomas’ hand pushed the monk back into the chair. The man started to make a noise and Tomas sent another pall of smoke into his face, then reached over and tugged the switch of a desk light on.

“Brother Teodor,” Smoke said in amiable, if hushed tone, “We’re going to need you to stay very quiet for us.”

The monk’s eyes opened wide, taking in his guests. Kuai felt his stomach twist at the betrayal and confusion swarming in that look.

“We just have a couple of questions, my friend. We’d like you to answer them in English please.”

Kuai crouched down beside the man. The man’s eyes followed the movement. There was only fear in them now. Kuai was used to that.

“Now, nice and quietly, can you confirm, ‘yes’, that you’re going to be compliant about this?”

Kuai saw a stubbornness set into the muscles of his face. Kuai gently took the man’s hand in his own. Both the captive and Tomas looked at him.

“Answer him.” Kuai said softly. He held the hand firm. The man gasped and tried to pull away. He squirmed in his chair, face twisting in confusion. A cold mist emanated from the grip. The man groaned slightly. Kuai tightened his grasp. The monk hissed and tried to pulled away more violently. The hissing fed into whimpering and the man tugged more urgently to free the grip. Kuai leant forward and put his weight firmly through his other hand, pinning his victim’s chest to the chair. He set the man with a stare, thick cold plumes of air sifting from the tight confines of their hands.

“Yes! _Y-yes_! Please stop – _Yes_!” The monk half-sobbed. Kuai released him. The man retracted his hand immediately to his chest. The fingers were white and blotching with blisters. He hunched over his hand, rocking back and forth, shivering and trying to warm it against himself.

“Good!” Tomas said brightly, and set the book on the librarian’s lap. The man stiffened despite his distress. He looked up.

“Where’s this from?” Tomas started.

For a moment it looked like their captive was going to give up his new compliance.

“Given it.” Their victim’s teeth were chattering. His eyes went to the blanket on his bed. Kuai let the temperature in the room drop a few degrees. Tomas looked at him sidelong in mild irritation.

“By?”

The man’s shoulders shook as he tried to wrap his hand in the black folds of his habit,

“He was just passing through.”

“Ranu Kasun an acquaintance of yours?”

The monk flinched at the name.

“No. No acquaintance. Just a man in need.”

“Really.” Tomas’ voice was flat,

“Yes! He came to the monastery needing shelter – how could we turn a man away!”

Tomas looked at Kuai expectantly. Kuai looked back at him. They warred the moment out between them, Tomas clearly not believing the man and expecting the answer to be pressed – Kuai already convinced and expecting a new line of questioning. Time was pressing, they were conducting an interrogation in a building full of potential witnesses. Kuai wanted a location for their target. Tomas ground his teeth and gave way to the certainty in Kuai’s look.

“Where is Ranu Kasun?”

“I don’t know.”

Kuai stood up. Their captive flinched.

“I don’t know!” The man repeated, a little brokenly, “It was years ago!”

“Did you help him hide?”

“He was a man in need!”

“Where did you send him?”

“I don’t remember!”

Kuai moved behind the chair.

“Please! I don’t remember!”

Tomas leaned in closer,

“Tell me.”

“I don’t! I don’t remember where he went! It was years-”

Kuai nodded at Tomas, who stuffed a gag in the man’s mouth and held down his hands. Kuai clasped his hands around the man’s head, thumbs pressed onto his eyelids. He pushed the cold into his finger tips, feeling the skin under the pads of his thumbs shudder and expand under his touch and the eyeballs rolled desperately beneath. The body writhed underneath him but he held the head straight in a vice grip. His teeth gritted as he remembered the pain the man was feeling. _No better way to learn this trick than to feel its effects_ , he heard his brother say above him as his calloused fingers blocked out the sunlight. Kuai waited for the sound of a pleading sob underneath him. _And once you hear that, just hold on a fraction longer. Enough that they know._ He released the man. Kuai’s heart was beating hard as he remembered that similar moment. The blur of vision and the tingling pain as the blood vessels and corneas began to freeze. And in the seconds after release, the paralytic terror that he might be blind, that the blur might never leave. Tomas’ released the man and ungagged him. He slumped into the chair. Kuai felt strangely empty as he regarded the frozen tears on his face. There were frost fractals on his eye lashes and snowflakes trembling away as the damaged eyelids desperately fluttered to bring sight back. The man curled himself up, bending his head towards his knees and choked into his garment, his frostbitten hand still cradled in his lap as the other skated over his eyelids, daring to touch the cold seared extremities.

“Where did Kasun go.” Tomas asked flatly.

The man’s breath was stuttering and shivering. Kuai stepped closer.

“R-r-russia.”

“Where.”

“Sankt Peterburg.”

“An address.”

“I- I can write it.”

“I doubt that.” Tomas remarked coldly, looking at the broken figure bent over his writing hand. The man gave a cracked sob in reply. Kuai turned and drifted to the window as Tomas extracted the last details from the man. The night had darkened considerably, but summer was reluctant to ever fully let the night take over. Hazy faint pinks and reds were sunk into the deep horizon. Dipping hills collected varying shadows between the stride of simple fencing and the secrets of old forests.

When he was done Tomas came to his shoulder,

“We should finish this and leave.”

Kuai shook his head.

“Kuai...” There was something between a warning and plea in Tomas’ voice.

“If we kill him we leave a blazing trail behind us. We haven’t got this mission under enough of a wrap to risk a murder. Not one we’re so close to.”

“We’ll dump the body. It’ll buy us a few days.”

“Have you not had your eyes open? There’s a tight schedule here. He’d be reported missing before we got to a train station.”

“We can’t leave a loose end like this, its too risky. What if he’s still in contact with our target?”

“We’ll scare him into silence. He’s not _in contact,_ Smoke. He’s an idealist who made a mistake three years ago.”

“An idealist holding a book with a dedication from our target.”

“We’re not killing him.”

“Kuai...” Tomas gave that warning tone again, “If this is-”

“ _Its not._ ” Kuai knew what his friend was thinking. This situation was looking very similar to the one on his last mission where he had refused to kill someone other than his target who might possibly have led to the jeopardizing of his mission. He could still feel the prickles of disciplinary scars curling across his shoulder blades. “You think I’d make the same mistake twice?” He hissed.

Tomas looked at him,

“If we do this. If we leave him. It’s on you. Not me.”

It was rare that Tomas did not readily share the responsibilities that came with the risks the two took together.

“Agreed.” Kuai grated. Tomas waved his hand dismissively,

“I’ll get the gear and meet you on the path. We need to move fast. Do what you want here and meet me in three minutes.”

Kuai could feel his colleague’s taught frustration, but was glad for the trust Tomas’ put in him.

Kuai was left alone in the cell. The librarian was still crunched over in his chair, breath ragged.

“I’m sorry.” The words came out of him before he could stop them. “Good people should not have to suffer for the crimes of another.”

There was only the soft irregular stuttering of the man’s suffering. Kuai opened the latch on the window.

“That.... that is not what we believe here.” The man struggled with difficulty.

Kuai thought back to the books he had perused through in the library.

“I know.” He said quietly. He climbed onto the sill, coiling up his body ready to spring. The man and his chair had their backs to him. “We mean no harm to you and your monastery. No further harm will come to you at our hand.” He hated to lace that assurance with a threat, but he had promised Tomas, “We need this incident to remain unspoken of. Do you take my meaning?”

There was a shuddering breath and a trembling nod from the silhouette. Kuai dropped his gaze, taking a moment to consider what he had done to the peace of this place. Then he leapt from the first floor window to the ground far below, rolling silently to break the fall. The night immediately swallowed him up into the rest of its shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slight change in pace. Fun times are gonna be sitting on a much blacker background in future chapters. Thanks again for the support, glad that you're enjoying this. I'm always up for hearing from readers old and new so hit me with any of your thoughts.


	13. Belonging Nowhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo friends, have yourselves a lil [illustration](http://flane-erenaeoth.deviantart.com/art/On-the-Prowl-626217710) I did of this chapter.

Early morning light and the rattle of the train kept him awake. He needed to sleep. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since he last slept and he wanted to be at his best. His mind kept roving back over the night’s events, wondering if he had done the right thing, wondering if he could have done things differently.

Tomas was asleep with a large grey hoodie thrown over his shoulders, his mouth half open and his face pressed and jolting against the train carriage window. His hair moved with a quality all of its own, almost as if the smoke under his command has infused itself into the man’s appearance. Kuai watched the countryside streak by the glass. He settled himself more comfortably into his seat. His mind jumped to a broken hunched silhouette, trembling in the darkness. He shifted again, putting his back to the window and pulling his legs up onto the seat. _Snap out of it._ He sighed and laid his head against his knees.

They had run most of the way to the nearest provincial town. A short early bus ride had taken them back into Belgrade city centre and they were now on the first intercity train out the country. They had purchased tickets for a two berth sleeper on realising the journey would take three days. _Privacy at least,_ Kuai thought, looking round the small carriage they had to themselves. Tomas had not seen the point of pulling out the beds since it was nearly morning and he had slept a lot of yesterday. Predictably he was the one leaving prints of his nostrils on the window. Kuai fought down a smile and turned away. He fidgeted. The memory of a struggling body under his hands and the pathetic mewl of a whimper escaping around a gag jolted through his thought. He got up abruptly. He breathed out slowly once then slid the door to one side, pulling it back across quietly after him so as not to wake Tomas.

The noise of the train was louder in the narrow corridor. He could barely stand with his shoulders abreast in the space. He pushed away the tang of homesick pictures in his head where quiet space filled the endless old halls of the Lin Kuei Temple. He rubbed his eyes and thrust his hands into the double pockets of his jumper and fingered the wad of notes Tomas had handed him. He had been assured it had been changed into a usable local currency, but he had no idea what it was. He found it hard to sustain an interest in the new things happening around him all the time. He did not have the energy to learn everything that this strange world threw at him in every moment to moment. He kept a track of his mission and leads pertaining to it.

He was tired in a different way to any he had been before. What wore him down was not anything tangible. Partly he guessed it was the that the mission never ended even when the sun went down. He was in the field continuously, never able to relax, never able to truly breathe out and be alone. The other part was the noise of the outside world. Not just the physical noise. But the noise in his eyes, his mind, in his nose, under his fingers. Everything was always moving, always trying to talk to him, take something from him. Every sign he passed, down to the lettering, the colours, the arrangement of space, the choice of material, everything wanted his attention, required something from him. It wore him down simply having to turn his attention from the noise of the world. And people about him. They always had something in hand. They were always doing something, reading something, going somewhere... They did not seem to pause ever and consider themselves, the space they were in and that precise present moment. Always when he moved amongst these people, watching them going about their lives and doing whatever it was they did, he felt that he saw their lives through a grey glass and was separated from them. He flattened himself against the train window with difficulty as a woman pushed passed him, attention on a small screen held in her hand.

Kuai walked up the corridor, holding himself steady every time the shuddering train jolted and took a fast turn in its tracks. He tugged open the doors at the very end of the carriage. Beyond was sparse looking diner car. He seated himself heavily at a table. There was an occupant at the far end with a hat over his face snoring gently. An old couple with deep crinkle brown faces chatted animatedly across a table on the other side. For a moment Kuai’s heart lifted as they reminded him of a pair who ran a store in a village not far from the Temple. They spoke a soft undulating language he did not recognise though. He pulled a menu out of a stand. He kept pulling out menus until he found one in an alphabet he could read. English. He flicked his finger through the remainder hoping to find one in Chinese. When he came up short he resigned himself to squinting at the English menu.

A woman in a brown dress, white apron, tight wound hair and a bored expression stepped up to his table.

“ _Dobroye utro._ ”

Kuai stared at her. Then looked back down at his menu feeling foolish.

“ _Chai_ , please. I mean – tea.”

“Chai tea?”

He faintly recalled the last tea he had been served and scoured the menu to try and find an adjective that would prevent a repeat of the experience.

“Not black tea.”

“ _Moloko_?”

“With leaves?”

The woman looked at him with an utterly blank expression. She then repeated all the things she had said so far.

“Chai tea with milk?”

“Milk?! No milk.” He said fervently. “ _Lu_? Green? Green tea?”

“Ah!” She said, her face lit with understanding, “Green tea!”

“Yes!” Kuai smiled properly for the first time that morning.

“We have no green tea, _ser_.”

Kuai sat in the diner car staring glumly out the window as fat raindrops slid sideways across the glass. An untouched cup of black tea sat steaming before him. He was hungry, but he could not bear the thought of another battle through the menu. He pinched the bridge of his nose and yawned. As his eyes closed he found himself thinking of the log shelter he had built for the monastery, and wondering whether it would do the job of keeping firewood dry in winter. There was nothing worse than wet wood when a warm fire was needed. Maybe the monks would forgive him when they had a good supply of wood. _I made sure not to blind him. And I didn’t put an advanced stage of frostbite in his hand. It should be fine in a matter of weeks, perhaps even days..._ He hated that he needed to justify this to himself. He felt a confused mess of bitter embarrassment at the weakness of feeling guilty, and at the same an abhorrent repulsion at the idea of _not_ feeling guilty for his actions. It was part of that same paradoxical chaos that lived within him – the dichotomy of superior condescension verses a feeling of envy when he looked at the lives of people living all around him; the dichotomy of seeing pathetic weakness and at the same time respecting the peaceful lifestyle of those in the monastery.

Tomas dragged himself into the bench opposite and sighed as he flopped into it. He pulled Kuai’s undrunk tea towards him and swallowed it down.

“Had any breakfast?”

Kuai shook his head. Tomas reached for a menu. He studied it for a minute before looking up.

“What’s getting at you?”

“Huh?”

Tomas returned to his study,

“You’re having an existential pouting episode.”

“I am _not_.” Kuai snapped.

“You still hung up on our... departure from the last guest house?

Kuai glared at him. He had no intention of letting Tomas know that was bothering him.

“Of course not. I did what had to be done. I don’t regret it.”

His friend lifted slow eyes to his own. They were quiet, steady and penetrating. Kuai looked away.

“You want to... uh... talk about it?”

“Talk about _what_?” Kuai said savagely.

Tomas sat back in surrender,

“Nothing, nothing. Just wanted to stall any... possible future problems before they happen.”

“ _Possible future problems?_ ”

Tomas winced as his own words were repeated back to him.

Kuai stood up, towering over the table, flexing his shoulders and staring down his colleague. He slammed his palms down on the table.

“Are you calling me a _coward,_ Tomas?!”

The dining car had gone quiet.

“No!” Tomas glanced around them and made calming motions with his hands close to the table, “Gods, Kuai. Sit down you’re causing a scene.”

“ _Causing a scene?_ Maybe you think that’s what I’ll do at the end of the mission too?! Tomas Vrbada doesn’t want to get dragged down with me if I start questioning the point and purpose of causing _needless agony to those who can’t even lift a finger to stop us._ ”

“Kuai, _please-_ ”

“You want to know what I argued with the Grandmaster about? I let a kid live who saw me killing my target. The Grandmaster said it didn’t matter that the alarm was never raised, I should have silenced the boy anyway. I told him some things were more important than a clean getaway. Then fucking Bi-Han steps in and tells the Grandmaster that I made a mistake, that I was confused and left the scene as quickly as I could; he told the Grandmaster it wouldn’t happen again. _I made no mistake, Tomas._ I did what I did _deliberately._ ”

“Alright – you’re a hero and a nutcase, now will you _sit down and shut up_.”

Kuai was breathing hard, a thin sheen of ice was fractaling over the table from where his hands pressed down. He straightened, then let his shoulders relax a little. He sat down slowly and reluctantly. Tomas was shading his face with his hand in embarrassment.

“We’re in _public,_ Kuai?! Could you not wait until we were in private to throw a hissy fit?!”

As always, Tomas seemed to miss the nub of the problem – the aching confusion that Kuai wanted someone to call him out on, to shout him down or at least tell him he was wrong. Instead everyone was always trying to cover up his _oddities_ , as they called them.

“No one understands our language anyway.” Kuai could feel his rage slip from him and the familiar, quiet disappointment in himself and everyone else returning.

“That’s not the _point!_ What if they did!? Gods. Fuck. You need to pull yourself together. I just want to finish this mission quickly and get home trouble free. Is that so much to ask? Why do you have to fly off the handle at me like that?”

Kuai felt a little contrite. This wasn’t really Tomas’ fault. He propped his forehead up on his fist. Tomas pushed the menu towards him.

“Now, eggs, porridge, or ham and bread?”

They ordered two of everything on the breakfast menu, much to the confusion of the waitress. Kuai ate in sullen silence while Tomas flicked through a Russian language newspaper that had been stacked behind the menus. The dining car slipped back into its previous lull and was smoothed over as if nothing had taken place.

“Hey, look!” Tomas folded down the paper to show a bar graph, “St Petersberg is due the wettest summer ever. Something to dampen your sunshine temperament.” Kuai glared at him and reached for the hot water Tomas had ordered him after he turned his nose up at every other drink on the menu. The cup paused on the way to his mouth. On the reverse of the page Tomas was reading was a grainy photograph. Tomas looked up at him. Kuai put the cup to his mouth and sipped. Tomas returned to the paper. The photograph shuffled out of view as more pages were rifled through. Kuai’s stomach had taken a cold plunge and the hairs on the back of his neck were stiff. A sudden grip of foreboding seized him and he held his tea cup tighter. Tomas’s looked up when the faint _crk_ of a line splitting the crockery caught his attention.

“What is _with_ you today?”

“Nothing. Just tired.” Kuai set down the cup carefully and made a show of stretching. He got up and slid open the diner door. Once out of sight, he lost all his casual cool and ran a nailed hand back through his hair. He may have just made a very big mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter for you. I kinda like this one. Sulky Kuai is fun to write. I put up a one-shot story I've been working on off and on of Scorpion and Noob Saibot post-MKX if anyone is interested. Kind of enjoying doing little things in between working on this. Also I really appreciate comments and support, it keeps me updating regularly by the combined power of excitement and guilt. If you are a fan of this story, please do let me know :)


	14. Revelation

They were back in their private berth and Tomas was dozing against the window again. It was mid-afternoon when Kuai slipped back out to the dining car. It was busier now. He was glad for that. He was fast realising that sometimes being in a busy place meant a lot more privacy. He tugged out the newspaper Tomas had been reading from behind the menus at the table. He turned with painstaking patience through the pages until he found what he was looking for. He smoothed the page. The photograph was old, taken in 1994 according to the Arabic numerals printed in the jumble of Cyrillic beneath.

 Kuai covertly opened his mission file and turned to the back. One of his fingers settled on the portrait picture in the mission file and another finger hovered over the newspaper. One of the men in the photo was definitely his target, Ranu Kasun. He closed the file and brought the newspaper closer to his face. The other figure was young, black hair and a face framed by a close cropped beard along the jaw line. He wore no glasses, but Kuai knew those dark intelligent eyes. He had stared them down until they filmed with fear. He had watched them widen into unspoken pleas for mercy as he chased blood out of his hand with the cold he controlled. He had watched them disappear into their own private hell as his thumbs brushed down on their lids and slowly began to freeze them. Kuai was as sure as a hunter could be that this was the prey he had pinned under him and let go. It was Brother Teador.

 Hand a little unsteady now, Kuai pulled out the small book he had taken from Brother Teador’s desk and turned to the inscription. His fingers moved over the names, matching them to the photograph inscription in the paper. Ranu Kasun, the name he knew and... Davor Kasun. Now that he saw the words... there was a familiarity to them. He had read not two days ago of Kasun’s nephew leading an army and carrying out Kasun’s orders. The name had been here on the inscription of the book the whole time, waiting for him to ask the right questions.

 Kuai had dismissed Tomas’ suggestion that Brother Teador might be in on this conspiracy deeper. Kuai had passed Teador off as an idealist, a monk with a spiritual agenda that stretched a little too far. Kuai had rejected Tomas’ attempts to silence the monk. So firmly had Kuai believed that this man had been motivated by mercy and ideals, that Kuai had... _I made a judgement call that made sense at the time_. But had it? Or had he once again let what Bi-Han called his _temperamental attachment to morality_ get the better of him.

 Now that the truth of the situation was becoming painfully clear, Kuai could not believe he did not see this before. He even knew that prior to three years ago, Brother Teador would have had a different name. He had read up on the customs of the man’s faith, where a monk took a new name on entering orders. Why had they not asked who the book was addressed to? _Like Tomas wanted to_.

 He put away the book when he realised ice was forming involuntarily on his fingers. The target’s nephew was sitting alive and well in the monastery they were leaving behind. In a matter of hours he could already have warned his uncle, and would certainly still be in contact with him and willing to brave the threats Kuai had (thinly) laid on him. Kasun was family. And Kuai had what – apologised to him and asked him politely to stay quiet. _I didn’t interrogate him hard enough, or long enough. We didn’t ask the right questions. We- fuck._ Hadn’t Kuai also been a little lax with his cover? He’d had a discussion with that Englishman about Sun Tzu and meditation, he’d liberally spoken Mandarin and thrown around Chinese terms of address. For all he knew, his target might not only be forewarned of an attack but might know precisely which organisation was after him, when they would arrive and how they were travelling.

 He buried his head in his forearms.

  _And its my fault. Its all my fault. Tomas tried to warn me. He tried to warn me about everything. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just wanted to use proportional force. How was I supposed to know that..._

 He sat there silent in the diner, face pushed against the darkness in the shelter of his arms.

 He sensed a presence close to him. Someone had sat down at the edge of the bench opposite him. Kuai didn’t think he could ward off company with more of his body language if he tried. He prayed it wasn’t Tomas. He was not ready to tell his friend just how badly he had screwed up, and how right Tomas had been all along.

 “ _Qu’est ce qui ne va pas?_ ”

 The voice sounded young, female, concerned. He ignored it. He wished the metal floor would peel apart and swallow him.

 “ _Parles-tu français?”_

 She wouldn’t be speaking to him if she knew the things he was ordered to do. That same old spiral was curling about him, where he hated everything he was and did, then hated himself for those treasonous thoughts; simultaneously failing his confused conscience and his Lin Kuei duties.

 “Go away.” He said in English.

“ _L’anglais_! Are you alright? Is there anything I can do...?”

 Her voice sounded gentle and lilting in English. He curled himself further inward and ignored her.

 “ _Monsieur_ , I don’t mean to intrude, and I am not normally so forward, but I have grown tired recently of people walking passed others in need. I will leave you if you wish me to though.”

 Kuai thought he had made that abundantly clear already. He looked up slowly through hooded eyes and thundercloud brows. He was glad to see she retracted from that. She was petite, with determined, intent eyes and hair swept functionally to the back of her head. Despite his best attempt to glower intimidatingly, she did not leave. Kuai’s usual embarrassment at trying to speak to anyone female was overshadowed by his foul mood.

 “You cannot help me.” He said coldly.

 “Try me.” She was stubborn. Maybe even attractive. Is this what attraction felt like? Her overcoat was worn, shabby, and did not match a bright green knitted jumper she wore beneath. A tattered book on beginner’s Arabic poked out of one pocket. A misplaced looking pendant was round her neck and a handmade bracelet was on her wrist. They looked like gifts from people who had nought left to give. The young woman intrigued him and caught his interest, stirring up thoughts like that Belgrade bookshop had – thoughts of another life that might have been.

 “Leave me.” He growled. And fervently hoped that she would not. She was as good as her word though. Her face saddened with a kind of pitying patience that spurred his pride into anger. She got up and left, the busy car swallowing her thin form up almost immediately. The silence that followed despite the constant noise of the carriage carried him into a long reflection.

 When he returned to the private berth later, Tomas was pouring over a map of St Petersburg he had acquired from somewhere. Kuai let him talk about his plans and strategies for honing in on the street in question and approaching unnoticed. It was some time before Tomas stopped and looked up at him.

 “Everything alright?” Kuai thought of the young woman and her earnest concern.

 “Yes.”

 “I... I don’t mind filing the report tonight if you like.” That was said with difficulty; Tomas clearly had no desire to.

 “No.” Kuai said a little too quickly. Tomas watched him uncertainly. “I want to. I... I want to speak with Bi-Han.”

 Tomas’ eyebrows rose and he returned to looking at the map, muttering something under his breath that sounded like ‘ _be my fucking guest_ ’.

 Kuai spent the rest of the afternoon into the early evening looking out the window, watching the dull rain turn all the world into a single sheet, slate grey.

 “Want to go get some food?”

 “I’m not hungry.”

 “Kuai, what’s-”

 “You go ahead though.”

 Tomas shook his head and left.

 Kuai sat still again, cocooned in his mind. Lightening flashed outside and broke the sky like an unwanted photograph snapping up a sober moment.

 He was trying to imagine a kind of work where people were so grateful, that they wound handmade bracelets out of nothing to give away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep so that's not great, Kuai. This is gonna cause you some problems... Thanks so much for the comment BusyMatches it was great to hear you're enjoying this :D  
> You all should hold onto your collective insides for an emotional rollercoaster in the next chapter. After that it'll be time to crank up the action :)


	15. Emotion Seldom Seen

The train had a satellite phone cuboarded into a space where one carriage ended and shuttered onto the next. Tomas had negotiated their use of it while Kuai sat comatose in their cabin. He was glad Tomas understood his need for silence. He would expect answers eventually, and Kuai knew a guilt in his chest for not letting Tomas know the straits they were in immediately. The sooner he let him know, the sooner they could... _there is no solving this_.

 Kuai stared daggers at the glass pane sliding doors that led into the next carriage, daring someone to come through and meet the full weight of his frustration. He could feel anger pulse palpable in his temple.

 Kuai held the receiver to his his chest, both hands wrapped around it. He breathed in slowly through his nose and out through his mouth. He looked up to the top corner of the carriage, letting his eyes focus on nothing. He let his body accustom to the sway and grumble of the train as it moved until it was only a peripheral lull in his ears. He dialled in the number carefully with a hard, keen, stoic expression on his face.

 The phone rang once, twice, three times.

 “We are more stealthful than the night.”

 “Bi-Han?” He was surprised to hear his own voice come out a sudden cracked whisper, rife with emotion. Judging from the silence on the other end of the line, so was his brother.

 “What’s wrong?” The words were stern but lacked that curt quality that might indicate anger.

 “I...” Kuai Liang was horrified to feel his body curling up into the carriage corner, as his throat dried and his fingers shook. “I’ve fucked up. Really bad. I... I thought I was doing everything right but I... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry – I wanted to get this right, I know you were counting on me, I’m sorry, Bi-Han, I-”

“Kuai Liang.”

 Kuai stopped and swallowed back the shuddering quality his breath had taken.

 “Tell me what’s happened. From the start.” His brother was even but not cold. This was the side of him no one else saw, that no one else understood. In the moments where Kuai folded under the weight of failure, it was Bi-Han’s firm but gentle hand that steered him through.

 “One of the monks at our monastery aided our target go into hiding three years ago. We questioned him and got a location. Tomas wanted to kill him, but I persuaded him we should let the man live. I wasn’t trying to be merciful, Bi-Han, I swear – I honestly thought it was the right thing to do. We were only at the beginning of our investigation and a murder so early on in a place where we’d shown so much of our faces – I thought it would slow us down and we’d have local authorities chasing us down before we even knew our target’s whereabouts. _Please_ believe me!”

 “Go on.” Bi-Han was quiet, reserving judgement Kuai knew. His insides contracted and coiled.

 “The man we let go is the target’s nephew. He’s a long term dedicated supporter who is almost certainly in contact with our target. Tomas and I are on a train to St Petersburg. It’s going to take another two days to get there. I don’t know if I should try and get off?! Try and go back and finish what I should have done? Or if its too late and he’s already made a call? Bi-Han, they’re all military with high up friends in a lot of countries – I’ve fucked everything up. There could be a private army waiting for Tomas and I when we get off the train – or nothing – our target might have gone so deep and so far that we’ve lost him totally. I think I’ve put our lives in danger. I haven’t told Tomas – I didn’t know what to say. It’s not his fault – it’s all mine. I don’t know what to do. Please help me. Tell me what to do. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this, I...”

 He trailed off. He heard a drip and was furious to see a tear splash onto the corrugated steel of the train car floor. He balled a fist to his forehead and screwed his eyes shut.

 “Stay on the train. It’s too late to go back. Be watchful at the train stops. If they’re quick and organised they may send agents to stop you before you reach your destination.”

 Kuai stopped trying to hide his broken voice in his responses,

 “Y-you mean they’ll be trying to assassinate _us_?”

 “It’s not beyond the realms of possibility.”

 “Bi-Han, what if they’re ready for us at the other end? What if there’s a f-fucking _army_ there. I’ve put Tomas’ life in danger. I’ve-”

 “Realistically, how likely do you think that is?” It was a genuine question.

 Kuai tried to suck in his distress to sound faintly professional as he answered. The result was a reedy croak,

 “I don’t know. It’s... For all we know our target has state protection. Or at very least... friends in high places... high places with disposable cash and strong links to the military.”

 Silence. Kuai took meditative breaths to steady himself.

 “Do you want me to join you?”

 Kuai’s eyes widened.

 “I... it’s not permitted! Y-you’re in _China_.”

 “Its not unheard of for a mission co-ordinator to travel to a mission location and help advise more complex operations. Do you want me to come.”

 Kuai’s screaming pride was banging on his ribcage.

 “Y... yes” He whispered.

 “Very well. Continue on your present course. I have a few things to settle first but will join you in St Petersburg as your train gets in. I hope I don’t have to tell you to be exceptionally careful leaving the train. I want you and Tomas to get on thinking up a strategy for your exit and start thinking through the possible scenarios you might encounter. I will hopefully check in with you tomorrow evening. I should have a portable line with me. In the event that I don’t, someone else is going to be picking up the Temple line. Try not to break down and sound so unprofessional in future,” Some of Bi-Han’s cool irony was coming back into his voice. It set Kuai at ease to hear that familiar scorn. “It might not always be me picking up the line and sorting out your sorry self.”

 “Yes, Bi-Han,” Kuai said quietly. He sniffed slightly, “Thank-you.”

 “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve got to get you and Tomas out of this alive and your target into a shallow grave before this thing is settled.” His tone was still on that warm side and Kuai took comfort in the safety it evoked. He tensed up at his brother’s next words though, “This is what mercy does, Kuai Liang. This is what too much compassion does to an assassin’s life and an assassin’s mission. Don’t you ever let me catch you showing mercy on a mission ever again.”

 The phone line went to a single deadened tone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:( Let him be, he needs a moment. He'll be back to his usual chill self in little bit.
> 
> Cheers for the kudos and comments :)


	16. One Last Mercy

He could tell Tomas was angry and upset. He had known him long enough to pick out those signs behind the casual exterior.

 

“Hey, at least you noticed. I skipped right over that photo!”

 

“We wouldn’t _need_ to have noticed if I hadn’t...” This was pointless. They both knew Tomas was trying to smooth over the rupture between them. Kuai took a deep breath. “I’m really sorry, Tomas. I’m... I should have listened to you. I’m sorry I’m a stubborn ass and I’ve thrown us into this...”

 

“Shitstorm?” Tomas supplied.

 

Kuai looked at him with contrition wrenching in his chest.

 

“Gods, don’t look at me like that. You look like a puppy.”

 

Kuai scowled.

 

“That’s more like the Kuai Liang I know.” Tomas thought for a moment, “Hey, you don’t think the old Czech bookseller sent us to that monastery because she knew that that monk was...” He trailed off and they exchanged long helpless expressions for a past now out of their control. “Well... whatever.” Tomas murmured.

 

There was one last thing he had not let Tomas know. He waited until Tomas had set down a bottle of lager he was drinking. Kuai took a deep breath,

 

“Bi-Han’s flying over from China.”

 

Tomas choked on the lager all the same.

 

“He’s _what_ -?!”

 

“I... thought it best that he take control of the situation.”

 

“That was _not_ your call to make alone.” Steady, undisguised anger showed in Tomas’ voice for the first time.

 

“He knows you’re not to blame. He knows this is my fault.”

 

“ _Kuai_ - _”_

 

“Do you not understand how serious this is, Tomas – we are in serious danger for our lives!”

 

“And who’s fault is that.”

 

Kuai’s face flashed anger,

 

“I already admitted it was mine. What more do you want? What is your problem with Bi-Han?!”

 

“My problem? My problem is the guy’s sadistic control freak! He’s threatened me with every kind violence, as good as told me if I wasn’t following his orders down to the letter he’d not only make me suffer, he’d also make sure the Grandmaster read a very unfavourable report on my activity in Europe. He’s had me spy on you, made me withold-”

 

“ _What?_ ”

 

“How can you be surprised by this? He made me report on any behaviour you exhibited that suggested you were having reservations over torturing or killing anyone.”

 

It wasn’t that surprising, but it still hurt to hear.

 

“What?! How l-... _why?_ ”

 

“Why do you think? For _you._ His weird, violent, Bi-Han way of being overprotective!”

 

“Tomas... I didn’t know...”

 

“The things you don’t know could fill a library.”

 

Kuai sat back. Tomas stared blackly out the window. Kuai’s insides were torn by the hunched curl to his friend’s posture. There was a long silence filled only by the sound of raindrops hitting the glass and running sideways along it.

 

Kuai broached the quiet.

 

“You must be pretty pissed off with me.”

 

“Yeah just a little.”

 

Tomas still was not looking at him. Kuai felt something build within him. It was towering and angry and frustrated and ashamed. He got up suddenly and left. As he did so he caught a fleeting look of concern and apology in Tomas’ face. He ignored it and shut the cabin door behind him.

 

There wasn’t anywhere he wanted to go, or anywhere he wanted to be.

 

He walked the length of the train. It was dark and the storm outside kept jumping into relief when its lightening flashes shot through the artificial light of the narrow corridors. What he needed was one of the lower Temple halls, a tough sparring partner and a good fight. There was so much pent up, over-stacked emotion seething through his head. He needed to calm down before he hurt somebody.

 

He walked far enough that he found a second dining car. This one was dimmer than the one near his carriage. Two of the lights had given out, plunging one corner into darkness. He pushed himself into the furthermost seat and let the dark chase out the discomfort the glaring lights caused his eyes. The late evening felt cool. He started going through the motions of a meditation practice, trying to will his mind into peace.

 

His brow knitted. Distant shreds of a conversation were filtering through the closed door at the end of the car. He blocked the sound out. The voices got louder. They were heated. He could feel his thinly held irritation simmering. The carriage door rolled aside and the argument continued in full flow into dining car. Kuai reasoned that they probably had not seen him and thought the room deserted. His eyes thinned when he saw the contenders. One was a young man, a few years older than Kuai with an auburn beard and wavy, combed back hair that was shaved at the sides. The other was the saviour woman. The one from earlier, he corrected his thoughts, the one who saves people in her work. He could feel the less irrational part of him sizing up the male. This was a gods sent opportunity. He restrained himself. He couldn’t even understand their language and had no clue what the argument was about. _Just give me a reason. Give me one reason_. _One reason and I’ll tear his limbs off._ He stared hungrily. The man was close to her. His spittle flew fast as their faces drew near in rage and anger. Their words collided in frustration and they talked over each other, at each other, hands gesticulating madly in the heat of their argument. And then it was done. The man turned and left, boot squeaking with the ferocity of his turn. The automatic door slid shut behind him. The woman slumped into an empty chair and buried her face in her hands. Kuai could make out her soft crying. All he could think was how his chance to blow off steam had been ruined. He should have just started on the man then and there. Did it even matter if he couldn’t justify it? He couldn’t justify anything else in his life.

 

He wasn’t even faintly aware of the decision to sit down in front of the woman. It was like he had forgotten he was not a normal functional human, the kind that might be some comfort to her. He barely had any comprehension of what she was, let alone how she felt, how she thought, how she-

 

“ _Monsieur?_ ” She looked up, startled, hurrying to wipe the tears from her face. He was embarrassed to have seen them, and regretting this entire incident.

 

“If you want me to leave, just say.”

 

He copied her words from earlier. It was not even close to humour, or an introduction – both of which had been his intention. She gave a slight smile and sniffed.

 

“Did... did you see all of that?” Her head tilted toward the door.

 

He realised it might look like he was intruding and swore at himself internally.

 

“Yes,” He said honestly, “But I didn’t understand any of it. I can’t speak Russian.”

 

She laughed. He had not meant that to be funny. All his barriers went up and his shoulders prickled.

 

“I guess you don’t speak French either?”

 

He forgot to mind about his mistake when he saw her genuine smile. He shook his head.

 

“André and I don’t always see eye to eye on everything.” Kuai looked horrified as she started to confide her problem to him. He certainly did not want this going both ways.

 

“You don’t have to tell me.”

 

“I know,” She smiled.

 

Kuai stared down at the table.

 

“You don’t... talk to people much, do you.”

 

It was not really a question. He was beginning to think he might have sorely misjudged who was reaching out to who in this interaction. She must have seen him shift, edging his weight away so as to make leaving easier.

 

“I don’t mean to pry.” She smiled that disarming smile again. Her brown eyes were still rimmed with tears that glittered like new year lanterns in dark skies. “Only, I don’t think I’ve ever in my life scared off someone with a physique like yours.”

 

“I’m not scared.” He said quickly. “I just...”

 

“Don’t... talk to people much?”

 

He was worried this communication had already gone too far. He was painfully aware of when he had let his guard down in the monastery gardens – all information his enemies probably had now at their disposal. Bi-Han was disappointed in him, Tomas’ was hurt by him, he couldn’t let more problems seep through the cracks in his defences. He stood.

 

“Sorry.” She said quickly, “Thank you for coming over. It was nice to not be alone.”

 

He paused, hesitating at that statement. He nodded slightly and moved away. He had been hoping for a fight, not more confused emotions. He turned his head back fractionally.

 

“Are you... did that man mean you harm?”

 

“Some kind of knight in armour now, are you, _Monsieur Silencieux?_ ” She asked a little coily.

 

“What? No.” He was not sure what she meant by that, but he did not like her amused tone.

 

“André is just a colleague. We disagree on the way that international aid is disseminated.”

 

“I see.” He didn’t see, but it was none of his business.

 

The door slid open.

 

“ _Clémence, tu-_ ”

 

Kuai turned around immediately. The auburn man was back. He had stopped on seeing Kuai silhouetted against the uneven lighting and the storm washed irregularity of skittering shadows. The man gesticulated at him, and asked something to the woman. Kuai was moving toward them he realised. She ignored her colleague and stood, placing herself between the two men.

 

“I don’t need your help,” she said lowly to him. His eyes were fixed on the man behind her. His throat was tender just where it rose above the neck of his jacket.

 

“ _Clémence, on y va._ ” The man put a hand on her shoulder. Kuai was faster than the bulb blink that winked the room out of focus. He peeled the hand off her shoulder and turned, sending the man crashing to his knees and gasping through the wrist lock. Kuai held him there, watching the way he writhed to try and lessen the tension in his tendons. A part of him was begging for this man to retaliate so that he could just-

 

“ _Monsieur_.” She said softly. Her eyes were firm, and not any shade of grateful. They never would be, he reasoned, in his line of work. He let the lock twist just a little tighter, forcing the man on the floor to contort his body and spew a sound like a whimper. Kuai looked at her. She met his gaze evenly, “Please.”

 

_No more mercy._ He could as good as hear Bi-Han in his head. The wrist was at the end of its movement range. Just one small jerk was all that was needed to snap it.

 

He released the man who crumpled to the floor. She knelt beside him, feeling his wrist bone to check it. Kuai left before she could look up, putting to use the training that let him come and go silently.

 

He stopped several coaches on and stared blankly at a wall. He punched it full with his fist, then with the next, then continuously until his knuckles bled, listening to the hollow rhythmic pound of echoing metal. He breathed heavily through an open mouth to silence the exertion. Thin dents had collected on the steel where he hit it. He walked on until he found the berth he and Tomas shared. The bunks had already been pulled down from the walls. When he climbed into his it was well past midnight.

 

“You okay?” Tomas sounded sleepy and just a little wary.

 

“Fine.” Kuai answered.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's fine he took it out on the train. There'll be less angst in the next chapter and more fun. Thanks for the beautiful comments they really make my day :D So glad lots of you are enjoying this.


	17. Braced for Impact

In typical fashion, they did not talk about the previous day. Kuai was one part grateful for the easy way that he and Tomas moved on, returning to their friendship uninterrupted, and one part screaming in his head for never being able to have out any of the furious battling confusions that bombarded his conscience. They bent over a map of Saint Petersburg, mapping routes from the station to the street.

 

Street was an optimistic term to use. The location was a cul-de-sac, the kind that could very quickly be turned into a compound, Kuai suspected. He pointed to a place where the road narrowed, and the ease with which it could be blocked, _if its not already gated and privately owned_. Tomas’ map was at least five years out of date.

 

“If we go in that way we’re we’re asking to be slaughtered.”

 

Tomas tilted his head in reluctant agreement.

 

“Approaching from any other angle is going to be a little difficult. We could maybe go for the rooftops... The houses backing onto those on our street might offer a way up to the top or allow us to at least get into the dead end without going through that bottleneck.”

 

“The other option is you go in as a distraction, smoking the whole street while I run in and breakdown the front door.”

 

“Yeah no thanks. Smoke doesn’t stop bullets last time I checked. It only takes a single stray shot to leave this mission down one Tomas Vrbada.”

 

A smile escaped Kuai at that, and he almost forgot they were sitting on a train probably hurtling into the middle of an ambush by trained military veterans. His smile faded.

 

“Well, maybe operation ‘turn into smoke and go under the front door’ isn’t such a bad idea after all.”

 

“I can’t believe you just said that after mocking my apparently ‘simplistic’ assassination techniques only the other day.” Tomas glowered at him, “Anyway I’m not doing that. It’s too risky. It’s fine when there’s a sleeping house and no one knows I’m coming, but I have to take my shape again to do any damage and I can’t keep up the smoke form too long either. Knowing my luck I’d probably reappear next to our target with a room full of guards pointing handguns at my face. If I’m going in there, you’re coming too, Kuai Liang. I want that room full of handguns frozen solid before anyone can so much as blink.”

 

“You’re highly theoretical scenario is getting away from you. Though I appreciate that you just admitted your risk-taking is a poor tactic, and finished with that heartfelt statement about always wanting me at your side.”

 

He thought for a moment Tomas might let that slide. A second later Tomas had cleared the table and landed on him in a grapple. Kuai couldn’t stop the laugh that gasped from him as Tomas grabbed the front of his shirt and straddled him. Kuai pushed away from the backrest of his bench and threw them both onto the floor, twisting as he did so to find a more advantageous angle. Tomas felt him aiming to change up the balance and squirmed to keep his weight pinned on top. Kuai still ended up underneath, but managed to get himself into full guard, keeping Tomas at bay. He saw his friend’s eyes narrow to take stock of this new, more precarious position. He had all of one moment to realise that Kuai wasn’t just trying to remove discomfort from his back, and was in fact already manoeuvring. Kuai pulled his legs up suddenly, getting one across Tomas’ front as a frame to stop him bearing down, and snapping the other up over his friend’s neck.

 

“ _Shit.”_ Kuai heard Tomas say, as he realised a second too late that he was in danger. Kuai forced his hips up, snapped his legs tight around Tomas’ head in a triangle, clenched his thighs and began choking Tomas’ throat.

 

The moment last a few seconds at most, before all the pressure vanished in Kuai’s chokehold and the carriage burst into dark clouds of smoke. The smoke fanned out, then pulled back to one spot suddenly as if sucked into a vacuum. It solidified into Tomas, perching on all fours on the table looking down on Kuai.

 

“You didn’t have to lock me up so tight. You nearly broke my windpipe!”

 

“You can teleport. I wasn’t exactly going hard on you.”

 

Tomas rolled his eyes and looked down at the map under his foot,

 

“We were meant to be working.”

 

Kuai stretched and put his hands behind his head, content to lie on the floor where he had fallen,

 

“That felt so good. I really needed to expend some energy.”

 

“Great,” Tomas got off the table and slumped back into the chair, “Glad to know I’m your personal punch bag.”

 

Kuai sat up slowly, yawning and flexing,

 

“You started it. Quit complaining. And open a window, you smoked this whole place out. It’s a good thing they don’t have good smoke alarms. Do you remember that one mission you did?”

 

“Shut it. Don’t talk about that. Look at this map. Do some strategising. You love strategies. I’m sick of staring at it. Actually I think I’m going to get some food. When I come back you better have the best damn siege of St Petersberg ever figured out.”

 

Kuai rolled his eyes at him and turned his attention to the paper as Tomas left. It was true that he liked strategy though. He enjoyed breaking down all variables into puzzles, seeing the vivid trials of the world slotted into two dimensions where he could ghost through different scenarios predicting movements and rewinding until it played out according to his wishes. There were only so many ways that one could navigate inanimate objects. With the right amount of time and the application of imagination one could plan an entry and exit of a building down to near perfect invisibility. As always with him, the less human factors encountered, the less risky the whole endeavour. People moved irrationally, with patterns that only made sense when one knew them intimately. He was not opposed to studying a target’s habits and movements, reading their everyday lives like he might a map. But in situations like this – a high dive into a deep dark pool, there was simply no way to know how many might be present or what the movements of their target might be. They were going in blind.

 

He pulled the map closer and folded himself over it. He let the lines on the page turn into towers and form the shapes of narrow alleys and tall tenements. He became so lost in his thought that he was surprised when Tomas hooked the sliding door open with a leg twisted into a side kick.

 

“Okay, we got chicken, something that smells like pork, potatoes but they’re covered in butter, sorry. Oh and hey I found you some noodles because I know you’re a homesick kid, they’re probably going to taste of shit but- Kuai Liang, are you listening to me?”

 

“Shh...” Kuai batted the air with a careless hand. “I’m thinking.”

 

Tomas sighed and dumped a series of takeaway boxes on the small table. Kuai swiped them to one side impatiently. Tomas opened a box and pulled it toward him. He held a a plastic utensil in one hand that was masquerading as three different forms of cutlery. He glowered at it a moment before tossing it away. He made sure to aim for Kuai’s face. It bounced of his nose and onto the map. Kuai said nothing and neither did he look up. His fingers absently picked up the projectile and he crushed it into splintered plastic shards. Tomas got onto his belly and leaned over the edge of his seat, fishing in one of the canvas bags,

 

“I take it you’re onto something then, since you’re ignoring my generosity?” Tomas made a triumphant noise as he pulled out a pair of chopsticks. He brushed them against each other and sat back up to tuck into the food.

 

“I would be if you stopped interrupting my thought.”

 

Tomas began shovelling chicken and noodles into his mouth. The smell hit Kuai’s nostrils and reminded him how hungry concentrated thought made him. Without looking up, one hand pinpointed Tomas’ takeaway box and the other relieved him of his chopsticks. Kuai ate a mouthful. Then another. Then a third. It was greasy with too much salt and no flavour of its own,

 

“You’re right. It does taste of shit.”

 

“Then give than back, jerk.”

 

“Nope. I’m hungry. And I’m working. You can eat those slimy potatoes and the suspect pork.”

 

Tomas swore at him, but did so anyway.

 

“Going to let me in on this plan, or do I have to wait until a round of ammunition is in my chest?”

 

“Tomas, I’m trying to think. Go play with smoke rings or whatever it is you do whilst I put the brains of the two of us to use.”

 

Tomas aimed and launched a chopstick from a second pair he was using. Kuai caught it between thumb and forefinger and looked up for the first time, deeply unamused. Tomas began spearing his food with the single chopstick remaining to him and shovelling food in vigorously.

 

“I’ll be glad when this is over and done with. I was hoping for more wild parties and less spending days on end with you, locked up in different kinds of very small, prison-like rooms.”

 

Kuai grunted at him. Tomas finished eating with a sigh and pushed the box away from him. He twisted his head to look up at the luggage rack overhead,

 

“How much weight do you think that can hold?”

 

“Less than one Tomas.” Kuai said, not looking up. Tomas ignored him and reached up to grab it. He pulled himself up with him forearms and began doing chin-ups on it. “If that breaks I’m going to freeze you and leave you in the nearest toilet cubicle.”

 

“Nine, ten, eleven... hey it can hold quite a lot! Thirteen, fourteen-”

 

“ _Tomas._ ”

 

“Alright, alright.” He began counting under his breath this time.

 

The afternoon ground into late evening. Evening went through the shades of pastels into vibrant sunsets before settling into low gloom. By the time he had to make the phonecall through to the Temple, Kuai was feeling quietly confident in the progress he had made. His plans were sketchy, but sometimes the best ones were. He had a dozen different scenarios in the works depending on what confronted them, and had memorized as much of the layout of the nearby area of the city as he could from the old map. He sighed with the first ounce of content he had felt in days, folded up the map and headed to the phone he had used yesterday. He met no one on his way and was even feeling in a relatively good mood as he dialled.

 

“We are more stealthful than the night.” That was not his brother’s voice.

 

“And more deadly than the dawn.” He said carefully.

 

“Codename and location.” It sounded like whoever was on the other end could not make him out either.

 

“Tundra. In transit in Russia, due to pass Moscow soon. May I know with whom I’m speaking?”

 

“That is not pertinent to your report, Tundra.” There was a slight sneer to the voice. Kuai was almost certain it was Sektor. “Full report.”

 

“Full report of what? I’ve been reporting to Sub-Zero. I can hardly give a full week’s report starting over again to you.” He admitted that he did like irritating Sektor. He had been sure when younger only to do so when Bi-Han was nearby, since he was closer to Sektor’s age and build. Now though... Sektor could hardly do anything from the Lin Kuei Temple.

 

“Show some respect. Tell me of your mission status.”

 

“It’s fine. All is going according to plan.”

 

“It can hardly be _fine_ if Sub-Zero is flying out to Belgrade.”

 

“He’s flying to Belgrade? Not St Petersburg?” That was a surprise.

 

“ _Tundra_. Give me the full mission report.”

 

“What’s he doing in Belgrade? He told me he would rendezvous in St Petersberg.”

 

“I _said_ -”

 

“Sektor, please. I need to know this, its extremely important to the mission.”

 

There was quiet. Kuai knew Sektor was weighing up pushing for an answer to his order, or relishing in the fact Kuai had just swallowed his pride to politely ask him for help.

 

“Sub-Zero said he had matters to clean up in Belgrade before catching a connecting flight to St Petersberg.” The answer came slow and amused, “Would you know anything about that, Tundra? He wasn’t keen on going into details. He told the Grandmaster he was going out to oversee the coordination of the mission end. Personally, I think he’s going out there to try and mop up another of your mission disasters.”

 

Kuai stayed very quiet as Sektor laid on accusations that came very close to the mark. When there was a pause, Kuai broke in,

 

“Are you done? I have an assassination to plan.”

 

“I know he’s covering for you. And I will found how.” Kuai could feel a faint sweat growing on his brow. _Petty threats_ , he told himself, _just like there have always been_ , _forget about it._ “I should thank you really, Tundra. Sub-Zero keeps slinking his way to the top of my father’s favour, getting handed the best missions, ripe with glory: is it any wonder all China knows his codename? I’ve been waiting for him to slip up for a long time. I always knew it would be for _you_. He can’t stop himself when it comes to sticking his perfect neck out for his train wreck of a brother.”

 

“ _He’s overseeing a mission_. _That’s all._ ” Kuai hissed that out between clenched teeth.

 

“I sincerely hope so. For _your_ sake.”

 

“Tundra out.”

 

“I’m not done-”

 

Kuai ended the call. He would in trouble for that. He screwed his eyes up and banged the received to his forehead. He needed to keep his calm.  _I did!_ He reasoned to himself. And it was true, there was a lot worse he had wanted to say to Sektor. He was doubly frustrated that he would be reprimanded without having even said all the insults he had wanted to. He sighed and hung up the receiver.

 

He returned slowly to his carriage. Tomas had the map out again and was holding it very close to his nose, as if an optimal route might spring out at him if he used the thing as a face towel.

 

“Are you asleep?”

 

“ _What?_ No, _Kuai_ , I’m trying to think of a plan. _Asleep_. You’re really irritating sometimes.”

 

“It wouldn’t be the first time. What class was it where you pretended to be studying and buried yourself under a load of open scrolls and just-”

 

“Was Bi-Han his usual shiny self?”

 

Kuai sat down heavily and put his feet up on the table,

 

“It was Sektor.”

 

Tomas spluttered as a glass of water half way back from his mouth tipped everywhere.

 

“Dammit Tomas, not on the map!”

 

Tomas held the map gingerly of to one side and shook it slightly. He set his glass down,

 

“Were you civil?”

 

“Was _I_ civil?!”

 

“Gods, Kuai, what have you landed us in now.”

 

Kuai folded his arms and let his breath out in a loud huff.

 

“It’ll be fine. It wasn’t that bad. But I did hang up on him.”

 

“You hung up on the Grandmaster’s son?!”

 

“Yes, but lets not worry about that now. We’ll be passing Moscow soon. Bi-Han said we should be wary as we do. If our target has been alerted to us, he may send agents to board our train and stop us early. Moscow’s the only stop between here and St Petersburg.”

 

“From one fun roller-coaster to another.”

 

“What’s a roller-coaster?”

 

“Nevermind, just start clearing up mistakes before you make too many more new ones, please.”

 

Kuai was about to snap back but relented. If they were going to start measuring which blunders belonged to who, he was definitely going to come off worse.

 

“Get some sleep if you want, I’ll stay awake and listen out for the station call.”

 

He helped Tomas pull down the bunk from off the wall and fix it in place. He slumped back onto his seat as his friend pulled on clothes more comfortable for resting in.

 

“Just be ready if I wake you though.”

 

Tomas put two hands on the bunk. It was high and he had a sleepy look on his face. He dissipated in a shimmer of mist, momentarily filling the cabin with wreathes of smoke. He reappeared on the bunk curled up under a thin sheet blanket.

 

“Like, maybe wear more than just shorts? Unless you want a fight in your underpants.”

 

“Shut up, Kuai. You’re not even qualified to give advice to a chicken after the shit you’ve pulled in the last two days.”

 

Kuai rolled his eyes and settled more comfortably into his chair. He flicked his nightlight on and turned off the main bulb. The berth immediately plunged into long shadows that moved with the scenes beyond the window. Subtle shades slid speedily over the shapes in the room, turning them from familiar to strange. Kuai turned and watched the darkness beyond the glass, wondering if, in a matter of hours, he might have to fight for his life in this small cabin.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, they're fine. Everything's going to be fine... >:)
> 
> Cameo Sektor being grumpy appeared. I like him a lot. Maybe I'll write another story with more of him in it. Thanks again for the kudos and comments guys I enjoy reading them a lot and they keep me fighting through the chapters I'm struggling to write!


	18. Fear Me

There was no moon. The dark leant shelter to his shape. His secrets were harboured in the eternal rolling horizons of a world gone black.

 

His step was light; quiet even when no silence was necessary. Perfection required no audience or observer. It simply persisted for its own sake. He savoured the precise execution of each difficulty he undertook – to keep his breath quieter than death, to ensure its always chilled mists dissipated fast and drew no attention, to keep his footsteps softer than shadows, to keep his movements fluid like wind on shifting material where no waking eye could follow.

 

He crept up the steep roadside, back arched like a cat. In the gloom he caught sight of his destination. Black on a starless night sky; a tower with smaller buildings clustered about it, as if seeking shelter. He darted across an exposed courtyard and crouched in the dense confines of thick shrubbery. The slight curl of his breath crusted a leaf near his mask in frost crystals.

 

His eyes first scanned the gardens. Dim shapes of frame-supported plants and low hanging branches filtered into view the longer he stared into the darkness. He waited, acclimatising himself to its outlines and movements, and studying it for any unwanted company. Once he had read all he needed from the gardens, he turned his eyes to the monastery. Pale yellow lights winked in a number of the windows. He watched as silhouettes shuffled in and out of the squares of light. Glassy blue eyes registered patterns in movement with dispassionate analysis.

 

He sprung from the undergrowth, jumped a low wall and ran toward the building. He planted a foot on a ground floor windowsill and sprung off it, catching a sill on the floor above and pulling himself up. He jumped again, fingers latching onto the roof, he pulled up his weight and rolled noiselessly onto its tiles. He steadied himself into a crouch and began to move across the rooftops, spreading his toes lightly so as to keep the tiles from crunching and sliding beneath him. He paused, picking up the sound of a voice. He frowned slightly. He moved to the very edge of the roof and turned his back to the long drop below. He spread his fingers and shot a white glancing jet of ice shards at his feet, freezing them solid. He leaned back, nose wrinkling in exertion as he controlled his slow fall backward, clenching his stomach muscles. With feet firmly iced to the roof, he hung upside down and looked in through a window. Inside was a dim room. Shelves lined the walls and were filled with books. An open roster lay on a desk by the wall. Two men talked to one another at the far side of the room. One sported a thick curling beard that glowed auburn in the candlelight, the other had furtive darting eyes, thick black hair and clutched a pair of glasses in one hand.

 

Only Sub-Zero’s head was level with the window pane. The light from inside bounced bright off the glass, concealing the hunter behind the monks’ own reflections. Low voices murmured through the pane. He could not make out the words, but fear sounded the same in all languages. He drunk in the sound for a moment longer as he hung upside down. He reached an arm, blew a spindle of ice onto a finger and unlatched the window, teasing it ajar. The voices came louder to him now.

 

“Do not try my patience, Athanasios. You know exactly of what I speak.” The black haired monk had his shoulders hunched over and glared forcefully at his fellow.

 

“You told the abbot you were done with all this and I certainly don’t want to end up mixed up in it!” The monk, Athanosios, was agitated and and almost whining.

 

“I want to know everything he said to you. _Everything_. And its not me asking! Do this one thing and all this will be in the past. All ties with the monastery will be broken.”

 

“You and I both know that’s not true, Teador. He will continue to cling onto you as his eyes and ears. And you never seem to take issue with that! Like you’re only too pleased to keep up your old acquaintances...”

 

“You know nothing of my problems! My uncle is not a man one simply says no to! Now, what did you speak to Charles Luo about?”

 

The auburn bearded man sighed and his hands folded together,

 

“Teador, I’ve already told you, I merely pointed him round the gardens. We did not speak at all.”

 

There was a long pause. Both monks held eye contact. Eventually the interrogator ceded. He folded his hands inside his habit, and Sub-Zero was quick to notice that the movement pained him. This caught the other monk attention too.

 

“Teador, are you alright? Your hands, they-”

 

“I am fine.” The other man snapped, retreating further into his habit, “I am retiring for the night. Come speak with me if you remember anything.”

 

They bowed to one another and turned in opposite directions.

 

Sub-Zero curled his body back up to his toes, crouched then stood upright. Indistinct rolls of dark cloud moved across the sky. A slight wind shifted over the rooftop and scuffed at his garb. He passed a hand over the ice at his feet with a gentle tenderness. Under his direction the ice melted immediately. He stretched, flexing and allowing his stomach a moment to untense and relax. Then he jumped off the building, twisted mid air, caught the roof edge with his fingers and landed gently on the sill of the next window along. This room was a bedroom. He watched from behind the pane as a door on the left unlocked. A flickering candle came into the room first followed by a trembling hand. The black haired man stooped into the room. He set down the candle and paused to rub his hands. By the flickering light Sub-Zero could see them discoloured and blistered. He smiled coldly. He knew the sight of frostbite like he knew the corridors of the Lin Kuei Temple. The monk turned back round to lock the door, fingers fumbling in difficulty. His shoulders sighed, then suddenly tensed back up. Sub-Zero’s head tilted in interest. The monk picked up his candle and held it before him to light up the gloomy space in front of an opposite window before him. On seeing nothing, he relaxed again, and set the flame down.

 

Sub-Zero unlatched the window and stepped in as calmly as though it were a door. A faint breeze pushed through with him. He locked the shutters behind him, and stepped around behind the monk outside of his view at the exact same moment the monk turned to look at the window. The monk put a finger to the latch, pressing it to test it was locked.

 

Bi-Han waited for those shoulders to relax again. He could almost read the nervous smile that all was alight in the slope of his victim’s back. He hovered a gloved hand over the man’s hair, just brushing the curls with his fingers, but not stirring them enough to tickle the nerves. A blade of ice flashed into his hand. He pushed the man’s head forward and pulled the knife through the loose folds of the neck. He pressed a hand to the cut just as the artery ruptured, freezing the moment in a block of sheer red ice. He leant the man’s head back on his shoulder so that he could watch the life leave his eyes. His gaze wandered over the damaged flesh, dry and cracked about the eyeballs. He smiled again, recognising one of his own chosen methods of interrogation. When the body stopped shuddering he laid it down tenderly on the floor.

 

He regarded the fallen corpse for a moment, then glanced over at the narrow single bed. He bent down and lifted the body easily, tossing it over one shoulder. He flicked aside the bed cover and was about to dump the body when footsteps sounded on wood. He stood stock still. The footsteps were meandering and uncertain. They came closer, right up to the door. There was a long silence. Then a sigh. Knuckles wrapped on the door.

 

“Teador, its me. I... I’ve had a think...”

 

Sub-Zero’s eyes were glued to the dark door, framed with just the thinnest rim of dim yellow light.

 

“I... I did talk with Charles Luo. Not for long. But he mentioned a couple of things that were unusual – Chinese military history among other things? Are you asleep?”

 

Silence.

 

“Well I’ll... come by tomorrow, but I want my name left out of this, please. Goodnight, peace be with you.”

 

The footsteps begun to recede away across the wooden floor. Planks creaked slightly under the step. Sub-Zero tossed the body onto the bed, twitched the cover over it and went for the key on the desk. He unlocked the door, locked it behind him and pushed the key under the door.

 

“Teador?” The footsteps in the library stopped. The silhouette of the monk turned. Bi-Han was already in the shadows, standing in the darkness where the tall lean of bookcases pushed the faint light of night into utter blackness. The monk took a step forward.

 

“Brother Teador?” The voice called again, this time timid.

 

Silence.

 

“I... I could have sworn I-”

 

The monk went to the door and pushed the handle. The lock rattled. He let go and glanced furtively around.

 

“Is anyone... Is anyone here?” He peered around the library with its flat shadows and oblongs of angular light, “Brother Teador.” A long pause, then, “Ch... Charles?”

 

Sub-Zero stepped into the dim square of light pooling across the floor. The criss-cross of the window panes fell across him in stripes.

 

“Ch-charles!” The monk backed away from the figure.

 

“No.” Bi-Han said quietly, he grasped the front of the man’s habit, curling his fingers into the cloth and dragging the man towards him until mask almost met nose.

 

“Charles, if I’ve done anything to upset you I... I didn’t mean anything by what I was just saying there to Brother Teador. I... I greatly respect your... culture a-and faith.” The man clutched thinly for words as they began to babble from him, “If I appeared to spurn it the other day – I did not mean to... like you said – great value in meditation, I agree!”

 

Bi-Han tilted his head.

 

“T-to be honest, I-I didn’t know you were still in the monastery! I-I hadn’t seen you around the last couple of days and I... Lord, have mercy... Charles, wh-what is that... i-is that a mask? Why are y-”

 

“Here’s your mercy, old man.”

 

Sub-Zero sent a wave of cold through his fists. Ice bloomed into sharp angular fractals, cracking and splitting, multiplying and consuming the whole body in seconds. Sub-Zero slowed the process just a little as the muscles in the man’s face froze. He watched all the confusion, terror and unspoken pleas written in those expressions as the mouth tried to voice what a frozen windpipe could not. Then the head was completely encased in ice.

 

Bi-Han took a second to admire his handiwork before his clenched his fists and sent a shockwave through the ice. A crunching clatter exploded before him. Fragments like shards of a broken mirror burst and collapsed into a pile of shavings onto the library floor. Sub-Zero glanced toward the exit, listening for any clue that he had been heard.

 

A long quiet filled the library.

 

He unlocked the window, climbed out, hung from his fingers and dropped to the ground. He left monastery silently, letting the black night turn him into another of its shadows.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a little different. Some of you saw this coming I know :p Hopefully you weren't expecting a whole point of view chapter though :D Went for trying to convey a very different tone with this one. As always, comments and reviews always very appreciated!


	19. Smoke and Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: contains graphic violence

Tomas’s eyes snapped open, primed to a sound he had not even consciously registered. He blinked as his ears filled with the rumble of wheels on sleepers and the constant dull sound of rain on moving glass. He reached out a hand to steady himself against the gentle shuddering rumble of his bunk. His hot palm met metal and he closed his fingers around the cool steel of a railing.

 

The sound came again; a lilting whistle; the soft bird call imitated by the Lin Kuei. He sat bolt upright. Lightning illuminated the room in a flash of white. The imprint of the cabin remained blurred into his retinas after the light was gone. The berth was empty. Kuai was gone. Tomas remained very still, listening for signs of movement in the dark room while his eyes readjusted. When he was confident there was no immediate threat, he gave a soft answering low trill of one of the birds native to their Temple area. A movement at the door caught his eye. His hand reached automatically for the knife under his pillow.

 

“Shh.” He recognised the voice as Kuai’s and relaxed a little.

 

A shadow moved into the berth and slid the door shut behind. The shape came close to the bunk so that the occasional light from beyond the rain smeared pane lit his stern features and powerful body.

 

“We just pulled out of Moscow Leningradsky station.” Kuai’s voice was still low with conspiracy. Tomas did not like the danger it evoked. “Get dressed. I think there’s going to be trouble.”

 

Tomas vaulted lightly out of bed and reached for a shirt. Kuai clasped his wrist and looked at him. Another flash of lightening burst into the room, framing the mask on the man’s face and the traditional assassin garb that enabled freedom of movement and anonymity. For a moment Tomas was rooted to the spot. Dressed in the ice blue of his heritage and pinning him with an intense stern gaze, Tomas for a moment thought it was Sub-Zero before him, and not his friend Tundra.

 

“Exactly how confident are you there’ll be trouble? ‘Cause we’re going to look very foolish running around like this if-”

 

“Quiet.”

 

It was harder to keep the lightness in his tone and the joke in his posture when Kuai was dressed like this. Tomas could not read the expression on his face. The high bridge of the mask combined with the low brow of his hood gave Tomas nothing but the piercing, serious eyes to read. He turned away and pulled his canvas hold bag out from under the bunk. He dressed quickly and quietly, donning light body armour over the close fitting black worn by all Lin Kuei. He reached last of all for his mask. He looked down at its steel bars that reminded him of prison walls. When he fitted it on he caged his humour and gentleness behind it.

 

“Hood up.” Kuai said curtly, “Don’t need you being recognised.”

 

Tomas reluctantly collected his flyaway silvery hair into one hand and bound it up with a ribbon. He pulled a tight cowl down over his head. His heart beat fast now. He could hear his breath soft and tinny as it escaped his mask, and feel the stray heat on his cheeks from the air that remain trapped within.

 

“You see anything out there?”

 

“No. But...”

 

Smoke nodded. Sometimes Kuai just knew. They had both come to trust those instincts.

 

“Let’s move. If they have the exact train they may know the berth number on our tickets.”

 

Kuai nodded. He sighed slightly and in the darkness Tomas caught a glimpse of the fine cold mist that exhaled from the vents of his mask. The last vestiges of personality faded from his friend and Tomas saw only Tundra before him now.

 

Tundra slid the compartment door slowly open. It rolled to a stop with a soft click. He glanced left and right then nodded. Smoke followed him out into the narrow corridor. It was some time in the early morning and all was deserted. The carriage shook slightly with a continuous dull rattle. Dim circular night-lights lit up strips on the floor but barely illuminated anything else. The fading lights of the city were blurring out the windows. The boom and rumble of thunder tolled out dissonance far away. Freeze frame flashes of lightening pierced the dark corridor in erratic irregular moments. Silver rivers of rain were driving down the glass.

 

He saw the corridor in more vivid detail than he had every considered it in the last two days. Every panel, each screw, the flimsy handles on locked doors to other berths, the slightly concave plastic mirrors between, the dimples in the corrugated metal lining the place where the flooring met the carriage wall. He felt everything with acute detail through the thin soles of his shoes. The air seemed colder, but he could not tell if that was because his partner was gathering ice on his fists. The fractals bloomed like unnatural flowers on Tundra’s skin. Multiplying in bursts of angular white that chased up the veins of his forearms. White plumes of soft mist curled about Tundra and shifted in the long empty passage. Smoke suppressed a shudder, remembering how the ice had met Brother Teador’s skin, deadening it in seconds, freezing all the water in his flesh until it expanded, whitening, darkening, setting harder and harder. His mind wandered for the hundredth time back to the image of Tundra pressing thumbs down onto their prisoner’s eyes. He wondered what that must feel like, and the terror that must have come in close and fast as sight failed before the sudden, inescapable onslaught of cold, brittle on one’s face. His thoughts meandered uncomfortably through scenarios in which Bi-Han might be displeased with his own efforts to obey his difficult demands. He prayed fervently that no such methods would ever be used by a cryomancer on him.

 

He nearly bumped into Tundra. The assassin had stopped and was squinting through two glass doors into the dark beyond, trying to catch a glimpse of what might lie in the carriage ahead. Tomas swore internally. He needed to calm himself and think of the task at hand.

 

“Are you sure even sure anyone got on at the last sta-”

 

Kuai help up a hand for silence. Tomas stopped. Kuai brought his mask close to his ear. Tomas shivered with the cold.

 

“Look.” The cryomancer’s voice was soft and muffled through the vents of his mask.

 

Tomas looked. Just beyond the door before them was a small, rattling connecting passage with crinkled walls that let the carriages bend and give as the train made its way round curves in the track. Beyond this was another sliding door and the darkened empty end of the next carriage. Or was it empty. Tomas squinted. A shape moved indistinctly past the glass. A loud crackle of static made them both jump. A speaker above their heads fizzed then blared to life, cracking loud disjointed Russian into the monotony of the night.

 

“This is a staff announcement. Would all personnel in cars H through L please make their way immediately to car B. Would all personnel in cars H through L please make their way immediately to car B. Thank you.”

 

The speaker subsided into static and that too eventually cut out.

 

“What did it say? Did you understand?” Kuai turned to him.

 

Tomas nodded slowly,

 

“They’re removing all staff from our carriage and the two in front and behind us.”

 

The assassins looked at each other, sharing their unease in silence. Tomas’ eyes snapped back. He saw movement again in the carriage beyond.

 

“I’ll deal with it.”

 

“Wait, To-”

 

The world dissolved in a roar of swift shifs of thick billowing smoke. All feeling and emotion flattened into two dimensions and sound dissolved into muffled quiet. He knew the familiar soft silence and flow of heat coursing as if through a void. He was free again, weightless, empty. Alone. Save for the voice of course. But the voice was only temporary. Existing in the momentary split seconds that Tomas’ took his smoke form. And he always forgot about it on retaking his human shape.

 

He passed between the thin gap in the doors. He took a moment to readjust to the slight turbulence in the connecting passage, then squeeze through the next gap. He swarmed up high, pooling mist and vapour in the upper reaches of the car. A figure was below him. It set something against the wall then turned about. Tomas pulled out of the smoke with a lurch, dropkicking the figure straight from above. His shin connected hard with their shoulders and the figure crumpled to the floor. The only sound they made was the hard drop of their body hitting the ground. He heard the train doors hissing open as Kuai hurried through to join him.

 

“Tomas-!”

 

Tomas nudged his victims face with a boot. Whoever it was, they were unconscious. Kuai took a knee beside the body and turned them over. There was a uniform and a hat and a gaping bruise starting along the visible nape of the neck.

 

“A train guard.”

 

Tomas shrugged,

 

“How was I to know?”

 

“Well for one they were holding a phone receiver like the one I rang the Temple on. And its in the same position relative to the carriage. And we did just hear a voice over the loud speaker.”

 

Tomas scowled at Kuai. He shrugged again,

 

“If this is the train guard that made that announcement, whatever crisis call they just made was a fabrication. They clearly have no idea what’s going on in ‘Car B’ if they’re here.”

 

Kuai rose and moved the body to one side with a foot,

 

“Well, now we know for certain this area was cleared to give us a welcome. All that remains is to see who by.”

 

Kuai narrowed his eyes. He always looked serious in his Lin Kuei garb. To Tomas it seemed like the flat blue and high mask were suffocating him. Kuai Liang was somewhere deep within, caged beneath an exterior the Lin Kuei had painted onto him. Tomas started when he felt contact. Tundra had put a hand on his shoulder, drawing him closer so that he could bring his voice lower.

 

“I’ll check out the next car. You-”

 

“I can teleport. And turn into smoke. I’ll-”

 

“We don’t need smoke everywhere. And you can’t seem to tell the difference between a train guard and an intruder with lethal intent.”

 

“Don’t be stupid, Kuai. I always scout our missions. So I made a mistake, doesn’t mean we should risk your life just-”

 

Kuai put a finger on Tomas’ mask and quieted him. Tomas watched him leave, heart pounding with uncertainty. He kept still behind wall at the end of the coach, not daring to peak out lest it alert someone to his comrade. There would be a whistle for all clear. The whistle did not come. He leant his head back against the cold steel and closed his eyes. He always hated waiting. Especially in pairs. Patience was fine as long as it was only his neck on the line. He never told the enthusiastic Kuai, but Tomas hated doing missions with him. He hated them for moments like these. Waiting whilst another walked face first into danger. And all he could do was wait.

 

He ground his teeth together and inched toward the wall edge. He poke his mask round the corner then quickly sat back. He frowned. He had seen two figures, silhouetted black against the dim light behind them. Neither of them were Kuai. He leaned round very slowly again. The dining car was deserted and in low lighting. There was something wrong with two figures at the end of the car. Their posture did not belong to civilians. It was in the hunch of their limbs, the spread of their weight, the way one hand rested on a hip as if ready to draw... Tomas retreated behind his cover. Handguns. He hated guns. And still no sign of Kuai.

 

_Wait for him. Let him do this. He’s not a child any more._ But Kuai Liang was not long come of age. And friendships were few and far between in the severe halls of the Lin Kuei. Tomas glanced round the corner for a third time. He scanned the whole carriage this time, trying not to focus on the slowly advancing figures with hands to their gun holsters. This time he saw it. A shadow on the ceiling. He screwed up his eyes. Kuai was crawling upside down along the roof, limbs frozen to the concave carriage top. He was meticulously unfreezing each hold and refreezing it again further along. Tomas shook his head. One of the figures approaching down the gangway of the diner car stiffened. Tomas immediately lapsed into smoke, letting the soft furls of vapour take away the shape of his body.

 

_Kill them. Take the light from their eyes. Put the heat of flames deep inside them and let them burn._

 

He ignored the voice and watched Kuai. The young assassin waited until both intruders had passed underneath him, then unfroze his arms and summoned two blades of ice to each of his hands. He leaned down, legs still frozen to the roof and carrying his weight. In a flash of movement he slit both intruders throats. The perfect silence remained unbroken but for the faint gurgle of blood. The two bodies sunk like creatures of sand whose foundations skitter away in the wind. They toppled ungainly and slow, blood blurting black ink fountains in the half-light of night. Tomas reshaped himself and stood. He stalked over to Kuai, careful to avoid the pooling blood that seeped over the floor.

 

“That was... innovative.”

 

Kuai flipped down from the roof. He landed and bent toward the bodies.

 

“I’m very sure they’re dead, Tundra.”

 

Kuai kicked over a body, allowing a utility belt he unclasped to pull free. He held it up to the light and frowned. He tossed it to Tomas.

 

“Can you read any of those cannisters? It would be good to know what we’re up against.”

 

The belt was studded with small aerosol cans, a number of hand grenades and a few devices Tomas could make no sense of at all. He turned the hefty weight over in his hands.

 

“A couple of stun grenades, one smoke, because smoke is clearly the best-”

 

“Be serious, Tomas.”

 

“Yes, Bi-Han.”

 

Kuai glared at him with real anger in his face. Tomas ducked responsibility for that comment by returning to look unnecessarily closely at the belt.

 

“This looks like... some kind of gas. I can read the letters but I don’t understand the word. It has a big toxic sign on it though. And there’s a radio of some kind.” He tossed that to Kuai, “And... I think this... I don’t know how it works, but this one says something on the side about high pitched noises.”

 

Kuai was turning the small radio over in his hand. He jumped and nearly dropped it when it crackled and went to static. A voice came over it and Kuai threw it at Tomas. Tomas caught it and raised a sardonic eyebrow at Kuai as the young man stared at the offending item like it was about to explode.

 

“Progress report, red group. Over.” A hard voice spoke in Russian over the intercom.

 

“Negative, no contact at present. Over.” Tomas replied.

 

“Affirmative. Update us when you have something, red group. Over and out.”

 

_A lot easier than reports to Bi-Han_ . Tomas flicked off the radio.

 

“Watch and learn, little Kuai Liang.”

 

“Shut up.” Kuai growled. “And stop talking so loud, we don’t know when-”

 

The both stood suddenly alert. Tundra glanced at him. Smoke nodded. They vaulted one to each side of the dining car, ducking below the level of the seat backs to hide. Footsteps sounded. Tomas peered round the seat end. Two more figures. They were dressed in full black with thick body armour and full visors pulled down over their faces. As soon as they entered the car with its conspicuous corpses, they drew their weapons. One reached for their utility belt, hand going for the radio. Tomas grabbed a fork off the dining table and threw it straight for the man’s hand. He did not wait to see it connect. He vanished into black plumes of smoke.

 

_Kill. Kill them. Let the the flesh melt from their bones._

 

He materialised with both hands posted one on a seat either side of the gangway and kicked both legs straight through. He caught the intruder full in the gut. The man hit the floor and a radio rolled out of his grasp. A fork stood out the back of his hand. Four thin threads of blood teased down the skin. Smoke landed and vanished again.

 

_Kill. In eternal burning they shall know no release_ .

 

He pulled out of the smoke and appeared behind the second man, lurching for the hand that was prepping the gun. He grabbed the wrist with one hand, planted a palm on the gun with the other and twisted. It was a simple wrist lock, but the man pulled the trigger just as Smoke jarred his hand, snapping the bone and pointing the barrel of the weapon straight toward the man. The muzzle of the gun nestled in the gap where his body armour did up. The shot went went off in an explosion of red. It passed diagonally through his chest and came out the side of the skull. Tomas found himself looking at the remains of the man’s brain sliding down the far wall. He winced and pushed the body away from him. As it fell it revealed the second man struggling to his feet and shuddering as he yanked the fork out of his hand. Tomas jumped and landed on his chest. He put one palm flat on the man’s chest and with the other ground the fork back into the man’s hand. The body writhed beneath him and a strangled cry came from under the visor. A fist swung at him. He released the fork as the punch connected with his temple and set the world trembling. He posted higher, pulling his head out of reach and pushed pressure through both his palms into the man’s chest.

 

_Yes. Let him feel what we felt. Let him burn._

 

Tomas’ eyes met those under the visor. There was something in them. Confusion. His hands vibrated with the pressure he was exerting. Thick hisses of smoke burst from around his fingers. The body beneath him began to shudder in time with vibrations he sent through it. A noise came from within the confines of the helmet, but the scream was muffled by the heavy padding and visor. Both the man’s hands scrabbled at his wrists. The body armour under Smoke’s hands was melted to nothing by the heat he was pushing through the fallen man. hot breath and smoke clouded the man’s visor. Unable to tell the status of his victim, Tomas kept the pressure up until the carriage stank with a violent stench of burning. Eventually he stopped. As he did, the body slowly stopped twitching. The head lolled back and hit the floor. The visor slid open to reveal mangled and melted flesh beneath. Tomas could not even make out the vague features of a face in there. The effect reminded him of candle wax. Or melted plastic. He shut the lid to the visor and stood, shaking his hands free of stray frays of smoke. He blinked. He had killed like this before, but had never held on as long as this. The smell made him nauseous.

 

He caught a hand on a chair and glanced around.

 

“Kuai?” His partner had not surfaced since diving for cover when the intruders first entered.

 

Kuai unfolded slowly from one of the dining booths. Tomas could not make out his expression behind the mask, but he did not need to. He read Kuai’s body language immediately and knew his distress.

 

“What’s wrong?” He reached a hand towards him.

 

“Nothing.” His friend abruptly pulled away.

 

Tomas looked at him in confusion. He made to search the berth Kuai had just left but Kuai put an arm out, stopping him.

 

“Leave it, Tomas.”

 

Tomas’ felt himself loosing some of his patience. _Not again._

 

“Kuai... If there’s a witness...”

 

“She didn’t see anything! She doesn’t know who we are. She can’t speak Mandarin!”

 

Tomas pushed passed him and crouched down. A woman with terror in her eyes and a large overcoat over her shoulders was curled up under the dining table. Her fingers were pulled back into her knitted green jumper in an effort to avoid the dark blood that crawled across the floor towards her.

 

Tomas stood. From the look in Kuai’s eye he had definitely met her before. That meant she had seen his face and could connected it to the double homicide he had just committed in front of her. Tomas sighed and reached to his hip for a dagger.

 

“Tomas.” Kuai put both hands on his shoulders. Tomas found himself face to face with the rigid mask, black hood and clear blue, tugging eyes, “Please.”

 

_Shit._

 

“It’s different. This...” Kuai’s expression, even told only through the upper part of his face, was enough to wrench Tomas inside. The way the skin creased about his eyes and his brow crumple with sincerity. “She... does good things. Not like us... She’s not like us. Please, Tomas.” There was an urgency to his voice, raw with passion, stubborn fierce anger, and something so fervent and alive that it gave Tomas glimpses of other lives and other worlds beyond the emotionless brutality of the Lin Kuei. He tried to douse the flame of inspiration that bright earnest eagerness awakened in him. He wrestled with the temptation to break out of everything they knew and did; to just leave it all behind and follow the instincts that set Kuai apart from any other Tomas had ever met.

 

“Like Brother Teador?” Quick-fire frustration made him say that and Tomas immediately wished he had not. His friend’s shoulders sunk and he dropped his hands. Those bright blue eyes searched in the blood on the floor for answers, head shaking repeatedly. Tomas covered his eyes with a hand. So much had already gone wrong on this contract. He knew Kuai would be the first to take the blame for any and all of it, but it wasn’t going to be that simple with Sub-Zero overseeing the mission. Bi-Han would not want the failures of the mission connected with his little brother, ergo with himself. Tomas had a feeling he would get that honour. He sighed and looked at the young man before him. Kuai Liang was two and a half years his junior. Growing up, that had felt like a big difference. While familiarity had been looked down on, Tomas had always gone out of his way to look out for Kuai. As they grew older that age gap had felt smaller, every small rebellion they made together was a tiny victory they held close to their hearts. For Tomas the amusements had become an alleviation from boredom, but Kuai had, like everything else in life, taken disobedience very seriously. Tomas did not fully comprehend Kuai’s objections to the methods of the Lin Kuei, but did know that his friend felt they were somehow integral to who he was.

 

The dangers the mission posed, the fury of the Grandmaster, the wrath of Sub-Zero, the expectations of the Lin Kuei – Tomas felt them all weigh on him as he glanced down to where the witness hid. He looked back at his friend. It was easy to make the decision with Kuai Liang so unhappy and dejected in front of him.

 

“Come on.” Tomas said gently and touched his arm, “There may be more of them.”

 

The light and relief in Kuai’s eyes was worth ten times whatever Bi-Han would do to him for this. They moved on, leaving the surviving witness alone in the slaughter house. Tomas’ saw Kuai turn once to look back towards the woman under the table. His expression was rife with apology and open regret.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene continues in the next chapter. Some Tomas point of view for you all. He, too, is a confused wombat. Sorry for gross melting face man. He was a necessity, because that fatality isn't pretty and there's no sense hiding it :/ Some Kuai moves up next.


	20. Smoke and Mirrors

They moved as flat black shadows in the quiet of the rumbling train. Two carriages away someone screamed as they opened a door onto a scene of carnage.

 

Smoke and Tunda kept ears and eyes trained on the darkened carriage ahead. It was long and narrow with doors to sleeping berths off to the right. Their enemies had killed the lights and the whole corridor was dark save for a red emergency strip overhead.

 

A faint _TINK, tink, tink_ echoed about the hall as something metal bounced on the floor. Tomas threw himself onto Kuai and pushed them both into the corner of the train. The sound of bursting gas hissed into the air. Tomas opened one eye then hastily untangled himself.

 

“Sorry.” He whispered, “Didn’t know what kind of grenade that would be.”

 

Kuai grunted and shook his head from where it had hit the wall.

 

“What kind is it?”

 

Tomas stood as softly silvery tendrils of smoke snaked out the corridor and writhed about him.

 

“My favourite.”

 

Tomas shifted into smoke and vapour, allowing the thick black grenade smoke to wind with his own.

 

_Let them know fear of flames. Let them see the horrors of themselves._

 

He pulled and contorted the loose smoke about him drawing it to him to form an enormous phantasmal figure. Coal black billowing clouds funnelled into an ethereal pillar that leant and bent under the red light of the carriage. He constructed a face built of stack smouldering smog, burning coal eyes and opened wide a mouth that breathed hot black air in a plume of foul wind.

 

_Know me and fear me._

 

Screams came to him dimly as though far off as the dry scalding air furled down the corridor. He heard the chaotic rush of feet running for cover, prayers to a god, and heavy, laboured breathing. A faintly familiar sound _tink, tink, tink_ came to him. And further still, a familiar voice, one he knew and cared for, calling out to him. Warning him.

 

An explosion of sound hit him. His mind went white with the wall of noise. A high pitched ringing blared monotone and continuous in his skull. It reminded him of a child’s screams, far off in a distant past, another world’s nightmares. His mind flicked between anguish, terror and rage and he felt himself loosing control as some darker fear crept over him. A voice barely audible over the pain of the ringing called out to him. Urging him home.

 

“Tomas!”

 

He was collapsed on the floor. Smoke was still billowing all about him. The air was vibrating with a high pitched tone. An empty grenade cannister rolled past his nose. Thick black boots came stamping out of the red shot mist. Tomas clapped his hands to his ears. The ringing was quieter, duller now but still hammering about his skull, tugging at images and memories that always just eluded him. His breath stuttered in his mask. The boots brought with them full combat-ready operatives, appearing like mirages out of the smoke. There was a click of metal on metal. The safety catch of a gun being snapped up. It reminded him of small gong dishes carried out into the Lin Kuei yard. Not the sound of them being hit, that was more like a thin splash. Just the sound of them being carried, the clink and click of metal. The jar and grind of anticipation it evoked before they were rung to start a sparring match.

 

The temperature dropped suddenly. Tomas felt the mask on his face chill down to unbearable cold. His breath was hot and warm on his cheeks and caused white clouds of cold to fume about him. Gunfire broke out. It was stunted and oddly quiet after the sound grenade, and suppressed by the long noses of silencers muzzling handguns. From where Tomas lay the gunshots lit up yellow in the smoke and orange where the emergency lighting glanced down from above.

 

The smoke curled away suddenly, sucked back down the corridor from the way Tomas had come. The air was becoming so cold Tomas could feel his extremities numbing. Frost crawled like cracked spiders’ webs along the floor near his nose. The smoke billowed and rushed toward the currents of cold air, clearing the corridor and revealing a wall of fierce bright white ice standing floor to ceiling, pockmarked with bullet holes. The black booted operatives paused at the sight of it. One noticed Tomas, lying on the ground, no longer in cover now that the smoke had all dissipated. He retrained his gun on the assassin.

 

A clattering shatter of ice burst from the wall and Tundra came through it like a bull, rolling forward taking two operatives each by their bulletproof vests and ramming their heads together. The shot meant for Tomas went through the leg of the man’s partner and a scream filled the room. Commotion and sounds from behind one of the train berth doors milled into the confusion. Tundra leant for the next operative, grabbed him, dragged him close and cracked his skull down onto the man’s exposed chin. Another scream was cut off as the jawbone dislocated into a strange angle. Tomas stared, watching his friend at work as the mull of foreign thoughts in his head subsided. A berth door started to open and with it the shouting of train passengers filtered out. Kuai kicked the door shut with a bang and jumped off the impact into a flying punch on the next man. The punch, strengthened with ice, sent the man straight down, helmet jolting with the impact and clanging off the floor near Tomas. Tomas shot a heel into the man’s face, breaking his nose and snapping the neck back with a crack. Tomas shook his head free of the last confusions plaguing it and vanished into a whirl of smoke.

 

_So close, we were so close. Soon the eternal fire will claim us in fraternity. Two souls bonded forever._

 

Tomas burst forth, appearing behind an operative. He seized the helmet and jerked it to the right with a jolt and a  _snap_ . As the body fell he blinked, leaping back as two blades of ice appeared simultaneously through the necks of the men in front of him. A blurt of blood caught him straight in the eyes and he staggered back as the silhouette of Kuai Liang powered towards him.

 

“Kuai! It’s me!”

 

The figure stopped.

 

“You shouldn’t get in my way, Smoke.”

 

Tomas wiped blood from the top half of his face with distaste. His friend was still in predator mode, head jerking this way and that to listen for sounds.

 

“They’re all down, Kuai, I-”

 

Another  _snap_ broke through the air as Tundra stamped down hard on a wrist. There was a groan and Tundra kicked off a fallen man’s helmet, plunging a blade of ice straight down through the man’s open mouth. A grenade rolled out of the man’s hand. It began to spin in circles, emitting green clouds of gas. 

 

Tomas dived for it. A fruity tang hit his nostrils and stung the back of his throat. He pulled open the top of the train carriage window and stuffed the grenade out with difficulty as the gas was forced into his face by the strong wind outside. He clapped window shut after it, and doubled over, breath stuttering through burning lungs. He swallowed down a metallic taste and squinted his eyes.

 

“Tomas?” A firm hand on his elbow straightened him and turned him abruptly against the wall.

 

“I’m fine.” He gave as his friend steered his chin towards him, inspecting the damage, “I think the mask stopped most of it. Good call to wear them.” He grimaced behind his mask.

 

A blaring alarm suddenly went off overhead. A grind of fresh steel clawed through the air as the train braked hard. It came to a shuddering emergency stop.

 

Kuai and Tomas looked at each other.

 

“Back to our carriage.” Tomas said, “Change into civilian clothes, then we have to abandon that berth and try to draw as little attention as possible.”

 

Kuai nodded.

 

Despite the continuous tone of the alarm and the whirr of red flashing lights, their tentative steps back through three cars of slaughter were in eerie silence. Only when they reached the carriage holding their compartment were their any signs of life. Passengers were stumbling half dressed out of berths. One group were hugging each other and sobbing in a corner. A woman in a blanket held an emergency train receiver in her hand and was pulling a small girl to her.

 

“Tomas...” Kuai said uncertainly as they stood in the shadow of the doorway, wearing masks and tunics drenched in blood. Tomas nodded, he grasped Kuai and held him to him. He pulled them into the curl and twist of smoke. The flat two-dimensional world was for once cool and quiet and empty, filled with the comforting presence of another.

 

They reappeared in their small, innocent-looking berth. Kuai took a moment to get his bearings.

 

“Damn,” Tomas looked down at his tunic, “Everything is covered in blood.”

 

“Try not to get it everywhere. That will not look good.”

 

They changed quickly and slipped back out into the corridor amidst the heightening horror and confusion. There were announcements overhead every two minutes trying to calm passengers, asking them to remain in their berths until a train guard came to them.

 

The darkness outside gave no hint of civilisation or life. Tomas guessed they must be stopped in the middle of nowhere. Kuai touched his arm and indicated with his head,

 

“I know somewhere we can wait that’ll look less incriminating.”

 

Kuai led him to a dining car that was a long walk through the raffle and commotion of train carriages. Tomas did not ask how Kuai knew of it. The two of them sat down in a darkened corner of the car where the light overhead guttered. The rest of the carriage was a meandering bustle of fear and desperation as people tried to make sense of the emergency stop. Civilians down this end would not even know of the bodies, Tomas realised, empathy extending to the confusion lined faces of families and friends all huddling together. A train guard entered and was immediately accosted by angry questions and rife emotion. In the midst of the chaos, Tomas and Kuai sat opposite each other, still and silent in the stream of turmoil.

 

It was like they were back at breakfast, sipping bitter European tea with boiled water added too quickly to the leaves, burning them and causing them to loose their delicacy of fragrance.

 

“That was impressive. Back there.”

 

Kuai did not reply. He was sitting in a large hooded jumper, propping his chin up as he gazed into the black of the window. It only reflected back the red lit distress of the people behind them.

 

“You’re a real master with that ice. No wonder they gave you full marks on your initiation mission.” The silence was not the normal kind they shared between them. Something about it made Tomas uncomfortable. “No one believed Sektor when he claimed Sub-Zero doctored your score. Everyone knows your brother expects nothing short of perfection. Like you said on the plane over here, being his brother only adds to the expectation, it doesn’t do you any favours!”

 

Silence. Except for the riotous cacophony breaking out all about them as passengers demanded answers from the train guard. Rumours that someone was dead were circulating. The crowd had the look of one about to erupt into violence.

 

“Whenever I kill someone, I feel something inside me dying.”

 

That was not the response Tomas had been hoping for. He swallowed and brought his eyes back to Kuai. He averted them again under that intense stare.

 

“I feel like I’m losing something important. Like there’s something inside me that’s tearing apart every time I kill. Something I can’t ever get back.”

 

Tomas passed a tongue over his lip and glanced up. The young man was looking out the window again. The emergency lighting cast half his face into red and the other half into shadow.

 

Tomas opened his mouth part way, then shut it again. Something pressed hard in his chest and crumpled his expression as he looked on the stoic face of his friend. It burned him to be unable to help with whatever tortured him inside. He opened his mouth again, willing words to come out. He stopped short. He never could work out the right things to say to Kuai, never quite understood what his friend wanted, what he felt, what it was he was so afraid of loosing. Instead, he gave his best comforting smile, but Tundra was turned away, so did not see.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter that finally explains what the title of this whole story is about :O Another Tomas perspective chapter for you. Next up we'll finally get off this train! Just wanted to say a special thank you to Soha for their continued reviews of this story and BitterSweet Crazy and colekanegawa doing the same over on fanfic.net. The comments really help me keep going. Thanks to all you silent readers for sticking with this too, we're moving into the last stages of this story!


	21. Reckoning

His eyes kept slipping shut. He had not slept all night and the morning had been long and trying.

 

Everyone had been evacuated from the train onto the tracks. Eventually another train had pulled to a stop next to them. Transport police had cordoned off the area and officers had been going through the passengers taking statements as the sun cracked a wide dawn over the barren flat landscape. Amidst the long shadows and strained colours of morning he and Tomas had drifted in and out of sight, avoiding all questions and official records. When the passengers had eventually been herded onto a new train and the journey to St Petersberg allowed to continue, they had slipped aboard unnoticed. By the time the train finally got moving they were four or five hours behind schedule. Tomas had wondered out loud whether that was a good thing to throw off their enemies, or bad as it might mean missing their rendezvous with Sub-Zero. Kuai Liang had said nothing. His head was still reeling from the night’s events.

 

A familiar emptiness lay heavy upon him. Emotions he wished he could feel did not come. There was only silence inside him, untouched and unaffected by the lives he had taken. All the world was a distant flat canvas, meaningless and unreal. His eyelids drooped as light warmed them. Sliding orange colours and a hot sun pushing through the glass were the last things he thought of as his head slipped onto the shoulder beside him.

 

He jerked awake when the train rushed into darkness.

 

“Just a tunnel,” Tomas’ voice reassured him.

 

Kuai blinked and rubbed sleep from his eyes.

 

“We’re twenty minutes off St Petersberg.”

 

Kuai nodded curtly. Unbidden, an image flashed before his eyes. A woman in a green woollen jumper crouched in the shadows under a table. Red blood pooling around her. Large terrified eyes staring at him. _But it wasn’t terror, was it. It wasn’t fear. It was disgust. Betrayal. Hurt. Disappointment. Sadness._ He shook his head.

 

His canvass bag on the opposite overhead luggage rack was stained dark brown all along the bottom. He stared disengaged at the blood seeping into all his belongings.

 

“We should be careful getting off the train,” Tomas was saying, “If they sent people to stop us at Moscow they’ll probably be keeping an eye on St Petersburg station, even with the delay to our service. I can turn into smoke, but you’re going to have to be more careful.”

 

“I do not need smoke in order to remain unseen.”

 

“Of course, of course. I’m just saying we need to be careful-”

 

“Careful like you were in the night, when you almost ended up impaled on the end of my knife?”

 

Tomas looked at him with one eyebrow raised. Kuai sighed and looked out the window,

 

“I’m tired. Sorry.”

 

“Listen, Kuai, about what you said earlier in the dining car-”

 

“I was tired then too.”

 

“I... I know, but I just wanted to say-”

 

“Tomas. Leave it.”

 

He saw his friend’s shoulders sink out the corner of his eyes. Kuai closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the glass. The moment he handed over responsibility for all this to Bi-Han couldn’t come soon enough. There were too many unguarded emotions and mistakes flying about. He couldn’t seem to do anything with the finesse and precision he wanted. He kept doubting his own actions and second-guessing his decisions. Even when he had let his training take over and tried to follow protocol down to the letter, he had somehow still felt frustrated with himself.

 

“I wasn’t going to tell Bi-Han.”

 

Tomas sounded awkward and apologetic. Kuai turned to look at him. He was glancing away and trying to hide behind a silver curtain of hair.

 

“About the woman, I mean. The one under the table.”

 

“I know what you meant.”

 

“Okay. Good.” Tomas squinted into the mid distance.

 

There was a prolonged silence. Then,

 

“Thanks.”

 

“No problem.” Tomas finally sounded relieved.

 

The train rattled through another tunnel. When they emerged they were in a criss-cross of rail lines, bordered on both sides by standing heavy goods trains and industrial warehouses.

 

“You got a plan for how we want to move?” Kuai asked.

 

“Yes!” Tomas seized on the change in topic. He pulled out his map. “I’ll teleport out the train before it stops and scout ahead. I’ll make sure we’ve got a clean route and see if there’s a nearby hotel we can check into. Where did Sub-Zero say he’d meet us?”

 

“He didn’t.”

 

Tomas’ enthusiasm drained a little.

 

“He’ll find us. Don’t worry about that.” Kuai squinted up at the sky as best he could through the window. It was overcast, but the rain had stopped.

 

“Are you sure? I don’t want to get into any more trouble than we’re already in.”

 

“You? Don’t want to get into more trouble? Never thought I’d hear those words out your mouth.”

 

“Kuai, I’m serious. Sub-Zero doesn’t fuck around, and we’ve already-”

 

Tomas cut himself off. Neither of them had any desire to go over the missions failures again. A strained quiet took them all the way into St Petersberg. Soon it was time.

 

“Will you t-”

 

“I’ll take both the bags.”

 

Tomas nodded. It was possible to transport the luggage in his smoke form, but he would need all his stealth and subtlety to clear a path for Kuai. He nodded one more time then left.

 

Kuai felt strangely empty as soon as Tomas was gone. He should have said goodbye, he thought suddenly. This could be the end for both of them. He had been short tempered and unfair with his friend. If it all ended in the next few minutes, would that really be how he wanted to leave things? He thought about running after him. _Unprofessional_. He could as good as hear Bi-Han in his head. Tomas would be long gone without Kuai to slow him down anyway. _Have I done anything on this mission but slow it down?_ He closed his eyes, but as he did so his mind flicked to a red lit corridor thick with smoke. There were wide eyeballs swivelling under a dark helmet visor as he plunged a blade through a mouth and stuck it all the way through to the back of a skull. _Did it go through the tongue? No, there would have been more blood. I must have gone above the tongue. It stabbed through so easily. I’m not as out of shape as I worried I’d be, spending so long away from the Temple._ He sickened himself. The back of an enormous pink and white façade building drew into view beyond the train window.

 

He stood and ran a finger over the underside of his canvas bag. The blood was dried at least. He slung one bag over each shoulder and secured them across his chest. He ducked the entry way and nearly walked straight into an old man. He opened his mouth to apologise before realising he did not know the language. He stopped when his eye caught sight of shabby overcoat and the bright green of a knitted jumper further down the corridor. He swivelled and walked in the opposite direction, leaving the old man cursing. He had been hoping to walk to the end of the train and hop off early while it was still moving. There were lots of reasons that was a bad plan, he justified to himself as he walked away from that haunting green sweater.

 

The corridors were flocking with tired passengers ready to depart. His intimidating size and baggage did not part the crowds as it had in Belgrade. _Damn._ He pushed his way towards one of the doors as the train slowed. The platform was long, wide and impressive. Conspicuous police officers in black patrolled the platform. _There were mass murders on the train we changed from. This could be a reasonable response._ And yet nowhere on their uniforms could he see any sign of lettering. Or badges. _Unmarked. Damn again._ He pushed back from the door, much to the rumble of frustration from his fellow passengers. _Tomas was meant to clear a route for me._ But there were far too many officers for that, and they were not being at all covert as they prowled up and down the platform. Kuai and Tomas had been banking on possible adversaries lying in wait. Unmarked armed guards standing so easily in the open presented a whole host of new problems. _Ranu Kasun must have State complicity. Or at least the political sway to get public services to look the other way. Private armed guards. We’ve fucked this up incredibly well._

 

The train stopped. Speakers overhead consoled, apologised, and reassured in a language he could not understand. The doors opened. A river surge of passengers flowed all about him. He remained an unmoving boulder in their midst. There was no escape. Here was the train, fast emptying all around him, and there was platform, waiting before him and rigged with waiting armed guards. He was a lone, tall, muscled man with heavy gear and a foreign face. If he stepped onto that platform he might as well have had a target painted on him. _I have to move. I have to move._ Waiting until the train was empty would not solve his problems. Nothing would solve his problems. He felt something close to panic set in him. _Think. Think. Think._ A bright green jumper.

 

He caught her elbow as she passed him. She turned in confusion and her eyes ignited in terror.

 

“I can’t change what you saw.” He said in English as they stepped toward the door. She gave her arm a jostle to shake him off. He held on.

 

“I can’t persuade you that what I did was justified.” They stepped onto the platform. “But you should know, everything I see when I look at you makes me question who I am.” She stopped trying to shake him and looked at him with hunted, wary eyes. He walked with her the first steps across the platform, eyes glued to hers. Behind her he could see uniformed guards looking over toward him. “I do not know any French, but I know there is and English word, ‘clemency’. It means mercy. It’s your name, isn’t it.” It was a closed question. An archway marked the exit from the platform into the main station. He could see it clearly in his peripheral vision. An officer in unmarked black body armour walked towards him. Kuai could see gloved fingers resting on the gun barrel as they drew close.

 

She nodded dumbly in response to his question. He pressed on, one hand still on her arm.

 

“I did not choose to be what I am. If I’d had a choice... what choices I would have made... what things I could have done...”

 

The officer paused, fingers hovering over his weapon trigger as they passed him. Kuai almost flinched. He steadied himself, not letting his focus wander from the flyaway brown hair of the woman before him with her peaked face and dark ringed eyes. They walked on and like that the danger was behind them. They were under the archway, armed guards still stalking the platform they had departed, clearly content the couple were not their target.

 

Kuai steered his frightened hostage onward. The old station building was an enormous brick construction with a modern interior. Wide grey stone floors bustled with those coming and going. The crowds thickened as they moved further in.

 

“When I saw your face, you reminded how wrong everything I do is. You reminded me that the people I kill are people with lives and habits and fractions of uniqueness that belong only to them. You reminded me what mercy looked like. I will not forget that.”

 

He broke away suddenly, moving easily amidst the flow of people, away from the platforms with their guards and out of the station. Warm air, dull afternoon sun, and wide triple lane road opened up before him. He felt a brush of shadow and smoke at his elbow.

 

“Some help you were.” He murmured.

 

“I had no idea what to do. I was going to try and find you and teleport you out once I worked out where those guards were. Elder Gods, Kuai, they were out in the open! In public!”

 

“Yes, thanks for the heads up.”

 

“Well, seems like you found a way to handle it.” Tomas led them to the right, skirting a multi-laned roundabout and aiming for one of the quieter streets.

 

“Thanks the gods I was able to use that woman as cover or it might have been my brains on the platform back there.”

 

“Eh, I think you might have been able to take them. But you’re right our cover would have been blown even further out the water if it had come to an open fight. Was that woman the one from before?”

 

“Had to be her. I saw a couple of others go by but they would have shaken me off and raised suspicion. This woman looked like she’d stay quiet if I made a profound confession to her.”

 

“Nice.”

 

“Where are we headed?”

 

“Not far. Five to ten minutes tops. If Bi-Han can’t find us you can explain to Sektor tonight how-”

 

“I already told you, he will find us, Tomas.

 

“Ah yes, like some elusive mythical being, he will swoop out of the night sky and know our precise location even though we made up our plans on the fly.”

 

“Or like China’s top assassin he will have an inkling how to track down two morons running from the paramilitary having arrived in at Moscow Station, St Petersburg.”

 

Tomas’ face scrunched up in something like realisation,

 

“Point taken.”

 

The hotel was another pink stone facade with imperiously arched white windows. A glass door took them into a garishly painted yellow lobby. Kuai squinted and wrinkled his nose in distaste.

 

“Think I’m going to vomit,” Tomas whispered, “What do they call that shade, Shirai Ryu yellow?”

 

Kuai gave him a shove but was secretly glad for the lighten in mood. He waited to one side as Tomas booked rooms. There was some kind of problem with the currency he was trying to pay in, but from what Kuai could see an exchange of money took place that seem to settle both parties. Tomas received a key and led them upstairs.

 

“Apparently Serbian dinar doesn’t cut it in Russia. But, with the help of an extortionate exchange rate, we do now possess the right currency.”

 

Kuai had lost interest in rectangular paper with various faces on that changed every time they crossed a border. The Lin Kuei benevolently took care of all monetary matters on behalf of their assassins. Kuai had no comprehension of the worth of even Chinese yuan. He was simply given what was needed to cover any costs he could think of and put no value in the exchange at all. He had never needed to buy anything for himself except any necessary additions whilst out on a mission. As Tomas had pointed out, the use of money on luxury tokens was officially forbidden but rarely policed. Kuai himself had never felt the need to break that particular rule, not whilst there were so many more important ones to be breaking anyway.

 

“I think this place comes with a breakfast balcony,” Tomas grinned as they climbed the stairs. Kuai shook his head, ever perplexed at the things Tomas managed to be enthusiastic about. “I can’t wait for food that doesn’t taste of train or monastery. I’m hoping for pancakes. And syrup. You had syrup before?”

 

Kuai shook his head.

 

“It’s like liquid sugar. But gold. Like honey but thicker. I want it with blueberries. And bacon. I read once in a book you can have all those on a pancake.”

 

“Trust you to want a cake for breakfast.”

 

“Kuai, a pancake isn’t an _actual_ cake.” Tomas slotted the key into their door. “Most of the time I can’t work out if your ignorance is endearing or embarrassing, you know.”

 

The room as a clash of patterns that assaulted the eye. It seemed to be trying to hard to impress. Kuai decided he would never understand why a bedroom had to be anything other than functional. This one was small. Two single beds that he was sure wouldn’t take his shoulder width stood with barely a foot between them. To make up for their small size they sported novelty looking wooden headboards that extended across the top of the bed and halfway down the next side wall. The quilts were a maroon pink and heavily ornate, but patterned completely differently to the cream and silver design repeated floridly across the walls. Kuai felt tired even looking at the room.

 

“Ah! Beds that are not moving! What a delight!”

 

Tomas had that right at least.

 

“Lets check out that open air top floor.”

 

“Are you kidding? I’m going to have the world’s longest shower. Everything stinks of blood. And it’s started raining again.” A thin drizzle was beginning to tap on the window pane.

 

Tomas was unswayed by this and bounded out the door regardless.

 

Everything had been moving too fast in the last few days. Kuai stood still and silent under the hot pounding water, letting the steam fill up the small bathroom and turn everything to a hot mist. He let the weight of the water massage his shoulders. He played with the air currents, exhaling cold mist and watching the warm air shudder and swirl under his influence. He let the water wash everything away: the blood, the sweat, the grime, and the more insidious things he carried with him: his fears, his guilts, his shame, his despair, his emptiness, his sorrows, his regrets. He steamed them off and tousled them with a soft white towel, damp from the humidity. Opening the door to the bed room let hot humid air burst forth. The fresh coolness of the room hit him with a refreshing blow. He opened the window and listened to the soft patter of light rain on the sill. He dressed and sighed. Tomas was still not back. He ran a hand backward through his hair, pushing dark wet strands out of his face. He reached for the room key on the desk.

 

A veil of washed out mist hung over the rooftops. Keen white parasols hiding treated wood tables were reduced to vague shapes on the balcony. Rows of bright flower boxes were dulled streaks of red in a grey world. Kuai wiped droplets from his face and narrowed his eyes. He could see the outline of Tomas ahead of him. There was something in his friends posture that disturbed him. It was a little too straight, a little too stiff.

 

And there he was.

 

He was ghost before him in the thin summer rain, a powerful dark outline stark against the grey sky. As he drew closer the familiar details became apparent. He was in full formal dress with a high Chinese collar increasing the severity of his stature. Cold air flushed as thick clouds through the vents in his high mask. Hard, blue eyes stared straight down at him. Kuai averted his gaze as he came to stand next to Tomas, who was sinking into a formal bow.

 

Kuai had no idea how long they had been conversing. Tomas’ rigid formality betrayed nothing but the young man’s discomfort. There was a prolonged silence.

 

“We thank you truly for doing this, we are honoured by your presence, Sub-Zero.”

 

Kuai could hear all the anxiety Tomas had tried to strip from his voice.

 

“Are you now.” Bi-Han said dryly.

 

Tomas straightened and swallowed. He shifted uncomfortably and Kuai knew he should say something to take the pressure off his friend. He could not bring himself to.

 

“You know what you need to do, Smoke.”

 

Out of the corner of his eye Kuai saw Tomas open and shut his mouth, eyes fixed on Bi-Han, clearly waiting for Kuai so step in and save him.

 

“Y-yes, of course.” Tomas continued. Tomas was going to be upset with him later, Kuai knew. He retreated further inside himself. Watching as if with another man’s eyes as his friend bowed and instantly dispersed into wreathes of silvery smoke in the gentle rain.

 

Raindrops ran through his already wet hair. They slipped down his forehead and caught on his furrowed brow, sliding sideways, down onto his cheek bone, then finding the channel near his nose and gathering on his lip. There, they dripped slowly, one by one, on to the floor.

 

“Four thousand miles and you don’t even look me in the eye?”

 

“I don’t think I can look you in the eye ever again. I’ve never been so fucking embarrassed in all my life.”

 

Bi-Han reached out and ruffled a hand through Kuai’s hair. Kuai glanced up quickly in surprise at the uncharacteristic warmth. His eyes lit and a quiet, sheepish smile slipped onto his face. He let out a long, exhausted sigh and pushed his forehead slowly onto his brother’s shoulder. The hand on his hair cupped his head letting him rest there for a moment. Kuai let himself savour that fraction in its entirety, closing his eyes tight to remember the texture of the material against his forehead as he was permitted the brief seconds of intimacy. Then the hand moved to his shoulder, pulling him back and looking at him. Intense, sharp eyes held him in their gaze. They were firm, but not unkind. Kuai looked away.

 

“Chinese military history.”

 

Kuai’s head snapped back up. A faint tinge of fear stole through him.

 

“Not exactly in keeping with your cover, was it.” It was not a question.

 

Kuai swallowed,

 

“You... you went back to the monastery?”

 

His brother tilted his head in acknowledgement.

 

“I-... Is Brother Teador dead?” He did not even need to ask that question.

 

“Yes. You did adequate work on the interrogation. Seems you were listening to me at at least one point in your life.”

 

Kuai felt his cheeks blush with the compliment despite the gruesome subject matter.

 

“But the second death would not have been necessary if you had kept to your cover.”

 

The warmth faded from him and Kuai stuttered,

 

“S-second...?”

 

Bi-Han ignored him and kept talking,

 

“For one so committed to keeping fatalities to a minimum and not causing unnecessary civilian casualties, you certainly have some hypocritical methods.”

 

Kuai’s eyes faltered as he struggled under his brother’s jugular glare,

 

“Y-you killed...? But no one else was involved, Bi-Han! W-why did you-”

 

“I may have dealt the lethal blow, but make no mistake, Kuai Liang, you killed the man. Athanasios. English. Red hair. Knew too much.”

 

“He wasn’t... He was no one! A... a nobody! I only spoke with him for a minute, I swear I never meant to-”

 

“He was about to pass on your ‘one-minute’ conversation to your enemies. If he had, there’s a fair chance your target might have worked out the identity of our organisation. You would have revealed the hand of the Lin Kuei to a live target. Not even I could have saved you from the wrath of the Grandmaster when you came home after that.”

 

The colour drained from Kuai’s face.

 

“I didn’t mean... I thought I was-”

 

“The matter is dealt with. But let his death be on your conscience and a lesson to you that familiarity and mercy on a mission may result in more death, violence and worst of all... failure.”

 

The fate of a man he barely knew. One who had made the simple mistake of talking to him. Dead. Kuai could feel himself struggling to comprehend the magnitude of that absence and how it had all hinged on a couple of misspoken words. He could feel himself crushing inward with shame, guilt and loathing that curled and writhed inside him. His brother’s gaze continued to bore into him, and Kuai knew that he watched his internal squirming, making sure the full weight those consequences found their mark. Kuai hung his head. Emptiness, dread and silence crawled up his throat. It was not just the death of a civilian that burned him, it was the hypocrisy. He had stood up before the Grandmaster and made his case for sparing a witness in his last mission. Now, his own incompetency had seen a civilian furnished with information detrimental to the secret status of the Lin Kuei. He did not even have his pride and ideals left to hide behind. Kuai was aware that Bi-Han knew this, and that all of this was carefully worded to push Kuai into never stepping out of line and arguing with the Grandmaster again. It did not make anything about this any easier or less true.

 

Eventually he caved under the pressure and silence.

 

“I’m sorry.” His voice was steady, but quiet. It rung heavy with burden of guilt. “I’m really sorry. I... I just... Thank-you. For sorting it all.” He wanted to ask Bi-Han to keep this all quiet, to never let another living soul know what had transpired in Eastern Europe. He knew in his heart that he never needed to, that his brother would cut down every person from here to the Himalayas to keep him out of trouble. He still wanted the reassurance though, to hear the words from his mouth that all was secret and would never see the light of day again. He resisted the urge to ask.

 

There was silence. Kuai closed his eyes in resignation.

 

“What is done is done. Live in the present, Kuai Liang.” Kuai chanced a look up. The harrowing glare had finally been lifted from him and now surveyed the grey of the skyline. “It’s regrettable that it came to this, but at least we have an entertaining situation on our hands. I trust you have been thinking of ways through it. Impress me.”

 

Kuai blinked. He tried to wrap up the shattered emotions and guttering guilt shuddering through his insides. He straightened, and pulled a mask of apathy on with difficulty. He was thankful that Bi-Han did not look at him and gave him a few moments to right himself into the impassive state expected of him.

 

“Yes, Sub-Zero.” He hoped the formality would help cement his composure. It succeeded in distancing the man before him enough that Kuai’s walls built up fast and thick. “I have a number of methods we might choose to employ. To ascertain which would be best it is imperative that we update our maps and scout out the area. I realise there is not much time, but a periphery glance combined with whatever Smoke tells us in his scouting report will be enough for me to work out our best mode of entry.”

 

Bi-Han’s eyes flicked over him. They were their usual mild disinterested. Kuai kept himself rigid and professional under their inspection. His brother nodded,

 

“Lead on.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter, the language in the first half bugged me so I clung onto it until I was happier with it. Still working on the next chapter too so might be a little wait for that one. You do finally get to meet Bi-Han now though :D I drew a picture of Kuai sleeping on Tomas to go with this chapter :p here is the link to it: http://fav.me/dan7s4y


	22. Waiting for a Kill

“You done?” Kuai was damp and his tunic was sticking to the back of his neck. Tomas had materialised amid the smoke and drizzle.

 

“Yes and no. I’ve checked out the area but I’ve not got a good enough report to give,” Tomas pulled his tight hood down and ran a hand back through his copious silver hair, “I’m going back again.”

 

“Can you-”

 

“Keep your voice down!”

 

Kuai glanced about him,

 

“Can you at least give me the preliminary report? I’ve got to pull together a good plan from all this.”

 

Tomas’ eyes were hooded and dark. Kuai could tell he was still angry with him.

 

“And Tomas, I’m sorry about earlier. I should have stepped in and said s-”

 

“Don’t. He’s probably listening. We’ve already wasted too much time.”

 

“What did he say to you when you were alone?”

 

“I’m going, Kuai. I’ll give you the full report when I’m back.”

 

Tomas vanished leaving only trails of smoke in his wake. Kuai ground his teeth in irritation. The grey sky and low cloud gave them good cover, but also obscured much of the detail in the cul-de-sac they were meant to be monitoring. A wind had got up and moisture was collecting on the inside of Kuai’s mask as he sat in the curl of a rooftop. A slight chill was in the air this high up and he felt the cold run down his spine. He blinked away humidity from his eyes and squinted down below. He was atop an ornate clocktower, looking down on the wide grey scape of the city below. All was an indistinct mulling mist under the spell of low cloud and the dregs of washed up thunderstorms. Early evening was still light and he had a high vantage point down into the dead end road Brother Teador had given as the address of Ranu Kasun. Though there was no obvious indication, Kuai was fairly certain the entire end of the street was occupied by those loyal to Kasun. He wasn’t the only one bad at blending in with civilian wear. The inhabitants of the high-rise blocks moved across the street with the stiffness of one wary and on guard.

 

Kuai put out his hand and touched the hard cold edge of his mask, rearranging its angle as he blinked condensation out of his vision. He needed to get closer for a better look, it would be dangerous to do so without Tomas’ initial reconnaissance report however. His friend was, for obvious reasons, very good at scouting out the dangers in an area without being seen. It only took one stray pair of eyes to settle on Kuai for the whole element of surprise to be lost. If they had been alone he would have risked it. He had faith in his own abilities and needed to start collecting as much information as quickly as possible to develop a good entry tactic. Then again, if they had been alone, Tomas would have already given him the report by now. They were both on edge. They both needed perfection.

 

Kuai caught the fraction of a sound, the faintest tap a foot on slate. It was all that prepared him for a voice sounding behind him.

 

“Has Smoke reported in yet?”

 

“I... uh,” Why did Bi-Han always have to ask exactly the worst question, “He’s... not done collecting information, yet.”

 

He turned slightly as Sub-Zero joined him looking down on the city. The vents of his mask sent clouds of cold into the air, joining those that Kuai breathed. A flash of excitement stole through Kuai’s chest. He was standing on the roof of the world next to the top assassin of the Lin Kuei, dressed in the same matching blue uniform and mask. Everything below was far away – a toy world in which they flitted like shadows barely touching it with their breath before they sped away. They had something unique, something they shared that all the universe beneath them could not touch. They were bonded in their distance and remoteness to everything. Since he could first remember, he had longed for this – to be on a mission with his brother, the two of them facing down world. Aloof, untouched, masters of their art.

 

“He’s moving too slowly. We not only need reports on numbers and stations, we need to start establishing patterns of movement. If we don’t get that in this evening we loose vital information that may require another entire day to acquire.”

 

Kuai broke out of his reverie, glad that his mask hid his dreams,

 

“Yes, Sub-Zero, should I go in closer and start-”

 

“No. Wait for the reconnaissance report.”

 

“As you say,” Nothing could get him down at this moment. Not with everything he had ever dreamed of achieving just here in this panorama, “Although, in my solo missions I always scout out the area on my-”

 

“Tundra!” His heart fell at the sharp tone and he was grounded painfully back in reality.

 

“Of course. As you say.” His glance lowered to his boots and regulated his breathing to make sure his disappointment did not sound too loud.

 

His brother’s temper was making the air even colder. A silence followed that turned some of the moisture in the air into snowflakes. Kuai watched as they moved lazily in the breeze, swimming and settling lightly on the Gothic curls of the clocktower roof under him. He realised his breath had been held in as he watched them.

 

“What additional entrances and exits are there from that dead end?”

 

“Nothing large and nothing easy. According to the map there was one narrow side path round to a garden at the back of a building. The garden is walled but quite low. That might have changed now. There are also a number of fire escapes that circle round the back of the high rise blocks, but the only ones that lead to neighbouring streets cannot be accessed from the street we’re concerned with. I need Tomas to confirm, but I’m fairly certain the buildings have back to back apartments that don’t share a common staircase. That should mean residents only have access to one side of the building and have no street access to the road behind.”

 

“That’s a very large assumption you’re making.”

 

“It was otherwise unclear to me why they should need exits on both sides of the building. I’m fairly certain I’m right. B-but I will leave nothing up to guesswork of course,” He added quickly, “I’ll hear back from Tomas before making any further judgement.”

 

Another long quiet. Kuai felt his insides curl. He chanced a quick glance sideways. Bi-Han’s eyes were immobile and empty above the rim of his mask. Kuai breathed a long silent sigh, again hoping it couldn’t be heard. He blinked his eyes several times. He had slept only a few hours in the early afternoon and nothing more since the night before last. He could feel a yawn growing in him and hoped the mask would cover any signs of it.

 

“Tired, Tundra?”

 

“No!” He sounded childish in his own ears. And very unprofessional. He could admit to not having slept. That would be the wise thing to do. _Never._ He narrowed his eyes to keep sleep away.

 

“Very well. Then you can take watch and keep an eye on the tower blocks tonight. Note down any significant movement so that we can compare to tomorrow night and see if any regular patterns emerge.”

 

“Wait- Bi-Han-!”

 

His brother turned and raised an eyebrow at him. He had a languid knowing look in his eyes. Kuai cursed him inwardly.

 

“I’m not in a fit state to keep watch tonight. Y-you were right. I am tired. I should have admitted it. I-I haven’t slept in a while and any report I make would be unreliable.”

 

He quailed under the sardonic stare he received and looked away quickly. Furious stubbornness scowled through Kuai’s heart and he willed the snowflakes before him into hailstones.

 

“Go to your room and sleep. Return when you are capable of doing your job.”

 

“But I want to hear Tomas’s report!”

 

Bi-Han stared him down. Kuai relented. He nodded once curtly and turned. He stepped up onto a wrought iron ornamental railing and leapt lightly onto the next roof, keeping his weight forward as he landed on the precarious tiled slope. He ran up the roof finial, bowed low to keep away from stray glances that might chance through a window or look up from the street below. He turned for the next jump, letting himself step off backward into empty space before catching the guttering with his fingers and dropping onto a concrete balcony. He balanced for a moment on its thin wall relishing in the peace and ease with which he could look down at the sheer drop below. Small cars pulled up to traffic lights and different colour coats on different colour pedestrians set off across black and white striped streets. Lights changed, order was kept, toys that knew their routes moved in time to the rules set before them, like pieces on a go board. He was at peace in moments like these – moments that required no moral judgement or confusion – only a simple appreciation and observation with fine honed skills that were his to command.

 

He stepped out letting his weight carry him down a balcony below. They were laid as though they were giants steps built for him. He always marvelled at the way that people out there failed to truly see their surroundings. They saw buildings as obstacles – giant obelisks to be skirted or entered – to the Lin Kuei such things were merely more tools to be use to one’s advantage. There was nothing that could not be climbed or manipulated. He might feel alien walking a city’s streets, but from above it was simply another forest to him, another mountain range, another environment to be navigated.

 

He paused again, this time only two stories up from the ground floor. He watched a girl not much younger than him pause before a gleaming shop window. A tousled lanky dog strained on a lead, trying to tug her attention away from the fine, thin, glamorous manikins bending in the window display in trim-line clothes and artful scarves thrown over one shoulder. He wondered what the girl saw as she stood there in her scuffed up trainers and oversized shirt. For just a moment, he dreamed of having her dreams, of being free to roam, free to pause, free to think about what to wear, free to dream of a future that might be different to what was lived now. The dog whined and tugged hard, nearly pulling the girl over. She shook her head and walked on down the road. Kuai watched her turn a corner, then continued on. He dropped down to ground level in a deserted alley before winding his way toward the hotel front. The world changed when he reached the ground. He straightened his back and tried to copy the walk that real people walked, he tried to mimic that distant glazed over way that they looked, as if they had their attention far away and not checking every corner and direction for a possible assailants or advantageous cover.

 

When he finally pushed open the door to his hotel bedroom it was empty and silent, but held none of the peace it had for him when he stepped out of that hot shower. He had thought then that perhaps he could wipe the slate, if not entirely, then a little clean: a long rest and a new focus on this the climax of their mission. He sat down heavily on the bed. The mattress bounced and sagged beneath his weight. He had not yet got used to beds. In the temple, a simple bamboo mat served to keep the chill out from beneath him. The luxuries of the outside world sometimes crammed up his head and made him feel flustered, invaded and erroneous. He felt out of place in a furnished room.

 

He pulled the cover off one of the beds and dragged it to a corner. He curled up underneath it and slept on the floor.

 

When he awoke it was dark. A dim yellow light broke the blackness and the reassuringly familiar shape of Tomas was bent over a board that had been laid between the two beds as a makeshift table. Kuai glanced quickly about the room. When he was sure they were alone he crawled over to the bed Tomas sat on and pulled himself onto it. It felt soft and comfortable now that he was half asleep. He stretched and sighed, not caring that his stray limbs invaded his friend’s space. Tomas pushed an arm away that came too close to his work. Kuai squinted and rolled onto his stomach. The map of St Petersberg had been laid out on the table. A large sheet of paper with the middle cut out had been laid over the map. These new large white margins had been filled with scribbles of characters that pointed to various locations. Tomas turned the map and continued writing down the side. Kuai looked up into his face as he worked. Tomas’ eyes were narrowed and he kept blinking them wide to keep them open. Shadows ran deep into his face and his lips twitched in agitation as he strained his concentration.

 

“When did you last sleep? Or eat for that matter.”

 

The only answer was the scratch of a pen.

 

“It was the day before yesterday, wasn’t it.”

 

It wasn’t really a question.

 

“Kuai, can you get your fat head out of the way, you’re blocking the Church of the Saviour of Spilled Blood.”

 

“No way that’s a real place name.”

 

“I’m not joking around, Kuai. Move out of the fucking way.”

 

Kuai sat back and frowned. He watched Tomas’ hands move over the map, expertly pin pointing precise corners, laying down a ruler and drawing thin neat lines to each note he made in the margins. As his hand skated across the map, Kuai saw the sleeve of his jumper pull back to reveal a red mark beneath. He stretched out his hand gingerly and drew Tomas’ sleeve all the way back. His friend shook the material back quickly, but not before Kuai had revealed a thick shiny red burn wrapped around the wrist.

 

“That’s an ice burn!” Kuai leapt off the bed. “Did he-?”

 

“Kuai, leave it, I had it coming.”

 

“What?! Bi-Han did that to you? How dare h-!”

 

“Kuai, I said leave it. I already told you that he wanted it a secret that I was spying on you. That, along with everything else that’s gone down... I’m surprise that’s all I got.”

 

“He had no right-!”

 

“He’s a more senior member of the Lin Kuei. He had every right. I’m actually a little relieved. If he’s punishing us now that means he might not report everything back to the Temple.”

 

“I’m the one that got us into all this mess! He didn’t punish me!”

 

“Didn’t he?” Tomas finally stopped what he was doing and looked up through hooded eyes, “I saw him speak with you from a distance. I’ve never seen you more dejected and broken. It made me so angry, I thought of going right back over there and telling him to take his self-righteous perfect ass all the way back to China.”

 

Kuai’s frustration melted a little when he heard some of Tomas’ familiar old tone creep back into conversation. Tomas caught his eye and gave a sly smile –

 

“I can still grind the edge off your temper any time I try.”

 

“That may be, but I’m still mad that he hurt you.”

 

“I’m more mad that I had to skip dinner after no lunch and breakfast.” Tomas picked his pen back up. I’m nearly done with this though, then I can sleep.

 

“Where is...?” Kuai could not bring himself to say his brother’s name just now. Cold anger was still prickling through his veins at thought of Bi-Han harming his friend.

 

“Up there still, I imagine. The man’s terrifying, but you have to hand it to him, he’s a machine that just keeps going. I think he’s been on the go since he got off the Beijing flight. He did what, that stuff at the monastery, then a short haul flight Belgrade to St Petersberg, and he’s still not stopped.”

 

Kuai’s anger abated a little. The anxiety and frustration had lifted from Tomas’ voice,

 

“He’s a bastard, but at least he practices what he preaches.”

 

Kuai’s eyes wandered to where Tomas’ fingers strayed to the burn on his wrist.

 

“Have you soaked that in warm water?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Your wrist.”

 

Tomas pulled his sleeve back over the burn,

 

“It’s fine. You should go relieve Bi-Han.”

 

“Soak it in water. Has it blistered?”

 

“Kuai.”

 

“See to it or I’ll do it myself.”

 

“Fine, now get on.”

 

It was cold on the rooftop. Rain was spluttering down and distant booms of thunder growled from under dark clouds all lit by the bright florescence of night life. Sub-Zero handed him a pair of binoculars and a sopping wet notebook. Now that Kuai was close he could see all his brother’s uniform clinging to him in sodden, lank folds. The material was several shades dark than normal and rivulets of rainwater coursed off him. Bi-Han had clearly just sat through a thunderstorm. Kuai privately thanks the Elder Gods that the storm looked like it was on its way out.

 

“Keep an eye on that bottom left corner especially. There were lights on in the lower floors not ten minutes ago.”

 

Kuai wiped rain from the glass and trained the binoculars onto the cul-de-sac. It took him a moment to find it in the black alternating with blaring street lights. He pulled away and nodded. The notebook below him was damp pencil and immaculate handwriting. Kuai noted down the time and glanced back through the lens.

 

“The hotel provides food from seven AM. Be dressed in civilian clothes and on the hotel roof for then.”

 

“Yes, Sub-Zero.”

 

His brother nodded and in the movement Kuai glimpsed a little of the exhaustion he knew his brother must finally be feeling.

 

“Bi-Han.”

 

His brother turned his head to him. Kuai kept his eyes on the target’s location.

 

“Tomas is like a brother to me. Don’t ever hurt him again.”

 

The silence was amplified by the absence of raindrops, all of which had turned to snow. Kuai kept his attention keened through the binoculars, not even breaking to see what occurred in his peripheral vision.

 

“See you at breakfast.” Bi-Han’s tone was unreadable.

 

When Kuai turned around Sub-Zero was gone. He returned to his observation.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got some chapters finished quicker than I thought I would. Things gotta get a little darker before they get lighter :o Sorry for bleak chapter :o


	23. The Last Morning

The dawn crept up on him almost without his notice. At some point he was vaguely aware that he was watching shapes and not just light and shadow. Movement started like a yawn. He kept up his vigil, but couldn’t help but notice the activity in the streets nearby. A game formed in his mind where he tried to guess who had been out all night and was returning late, and who was an early riser, ready for a new day of labour.

 

Lone cars pulled down empty alleys with headlights still brandished to fend off the night. Morning light filled up the long roads that went east to west, throwing long purple shadows wherever it went. The sun hit the sky just as the last storm clouds were dispersing and sent them pink and gold and rimmed with bright keen white. Kuai shaded his eyes and brought the binoculars down. Flashes of light rippled in waves across the cityscape as the sunrise reached each new building and set their windows ablaze with the morning. Kuai paused and looked with a different kind of eye.

 

Growing up with the Lin Kuei meant no possessions to call his own, no time for appreciation of craftsmanship, and certainly no space for beauty. Rooms were spartan and intended for focus, not distraction. Even so, no amount of training could drill out the awe a young assassin felt when they first left the walls of the Temple, climbed the valley and looked out on the diving brutal landscape of serene snow and sheer mountains. He loved the way that ridges ran like knife-edge spines all coated with ice so thin they might cut the very air. He loved the way the greatest of mountains did not wait for the world but pushed up through the clouds to live far away, their heads lost beyond what a human eye could see. As assassins they might train for perfection, but there was a certainly humility one had to feel, especially as a cryomancer, when living amidst such feral beauty.

 

It was here too in this city. Impossibly different and yet infinitely familiar. This was the first time he realised his awe did not need to just be for empty barren landscapes alone. Human cities opened to the sun the same way iced buds did. Slow tentative petals unfurling slowly into radiant blossoms. And here was a landscape on fire with light; a reflection of his own quiet frozen peace in the midst of a city in summer.

 

He looked down at the notes he had taken, flicking back through the pages he had filled in the early morning. It was hard to tell where Bi-Han’s report ended and his started. The attention to detail was almost exact, and so were the immaculate characters of their handwriting. Eventually he found the page where the thunderstorm had stopped staining the pages.

 

The early hours had been quiet, but the swing of torchlight and the occasional window square flicking orange told him when and where movement was occurring. There were three separate security rotations. Guards patrolled the left side of the alley, moving in and out of the ground floor apartments and circling round to the alley entrance before heading back. On the right side they did the same, but after circling back took a small side path where Kuai lost them. They would re-emerge a few minutes later and re-enter the apartment blocks. This was likely to be the path down to a garden Kuai had seen on the maps. If the guards were including it in their patrol, it was possibly that area might be seen as vulnerable to infiltration. He had been especially careful to calculate the times between guards returning to that path. The last rotation was round the buildings at the end of the cul-de-sac. These were numerous, with lights flicking not only on and off about the ground floor, but also on the higher levels too. That would be where Kasun would be.

 

It always amazed Kuai how much his targets revealed about their own weaknesses and concerns. His targets always assumed that the more bodies they hired to stand around them, the higher their chance of survival. But the Lin Kuei went through people easily, their real enemy was information. Not knowing where someone was, or how to get to them, or how many enemies one faced... these were the real problems. A single night’s observation was all a Lin Kuei assassin needed to work out exactly where a target was and how to get to them when a place was on lockdown and swarming with strategically located guards. One simply had to look to where the highest number of guards were stationed, and to notice how frequently they circled the places they were worried might be open to attack.

 

Bi-Han had been right to get them on this as soon as possible, Kuai realised. He had been sceptical at first – tired assassins make mistakes, but between the three of them they had shared the work and each got a chance to have enough rest to function.

 

Kuai glanced up from his notes. Three boys meandered down a street. They had satchels over one shoulder and were dribbling a ball to each other. Kuai stopped thinking and watched them. One dropped his bag between a puddle and the curb and pointed, shouting something to his friend. Another boy dumped a bag in the middle of the road and stood between them. The boys took turns at trying to aim a ball between the bags, with one boy blocking them. Kuai frowned with interest, evaluating the scene as he might a target before an assassination. Two of the boys were only using their feet, whilst the last used his hands as well, but moved between the bags as if guarding a gateway. They seemed to have designated roles, as one might in a sparring match with a set scenario. Kuai caught on fast, noting their movements and the skill with which they kept the ball close, weaving and looking for openings in their opponent’s guard. They missed several, much to Kuai’s frustration. Then one boy went in fast. He hit the ball high on his instep and sent the ball sailing through the air. It bounced off at angle down into the shadowy confines of the cul-de-sac.

 

One boy started to run after it, but his friend grabbed his shirt. Kuai tilted his head, eyes bright and alert. The friend pointed down the street Kuai had been watching all night. It was shadowy, but empty with nothing stopping them. Some kind of argument ensued. Hands shoved and the boys sized each other up, puffing out their small chests and pushing them into each other. One boy threw up his hands and stomped over to his satchel. He swung it onto his back and walked off. A second boy pointed at the third, before stalking off and following the first. The last boy looked forlornly up the the cul-de-sac. The ball had rolled to a stop before a long dark puddle maybe half way down the street. The boy’s shoulders sagged. He stooped to pick up his bag and ran off after his friends.

 

Kuai began writing quickly.

 

Seven o’clock stole up on him faster than he expected. He had to run fast to get down to the ground floor in time. He leapt from building to building and balcony to balcony without stopping, using the momentum from each jump to propel him into the next. He was breathing hard when he reached street level and had to try hard to keep his pace brisk but inconspicuous.

 

He sat down ten minutes later in civilian clothes at a white tablecloth on the hotel balcony. A glorious fierce blue sky was above them, with no trace of the storm from early morning. The sun sent bright rays through casual parasols that leaned over each table. Tomas and Bi-Han sat at the table with tea-cups and saucers and elegant menus before them. The whole scene was absurd to Kuai. He had never seen his brother in anything but severe Lin Kuei uniform, or the only slightly less formal tunics worn after training. Bi-Han was sitting opposite him in a dark suit jacket and shirt.

 

“Close your mouth, Kuai Liang. I don’t want a fish for a brother.”

 

Kuai shut his mouth and glanced down quickly at the menu. He suddenly felt even more awkward about the functional tank top he had pulled on before running upstairs to meet them. It was a good few moments before he realised he couldn’t read the menu. He turned it over and found an English version on the back.

 

“These are all drinks.”

 

“There’s a buffet for food!” Tomas looked a lot better than he had in the night. His eyes were brighter and some of the shadows had gone from his cheeks.

 

Bi-Han set down the menu with some indifference. He held up a finger and summoned a waiter over.

 

“I want chrysanthemum tea.”

 

“Chysanthemum, sir? Is that on the drinks menu?”

 

“Your menu is deficient.”

 

The waiter looked at him.

 

“I’ll see what we can do, sir.”

 

“And I want the water left for four minutes after its boiled before the tea is added.”

 

“I’ll see what we can do, sir.”

 

“And better sugar. This on the table here isn’t good enough.”

 

The waiter looked at the sugar bowl on the table. He picked it up and left.

 

Kuai stared at Tomas. Tomas stared back at him. Bi-Han folded his arms and looked out over the panorama the balcony gave them.

 

“Let’s uh... let’s go get some food, Kuai.” Tomas tugged Kuai’s arm.

 

The two off them got up quickly and made for a long table at the end of the balcony, moving sideways to get their bulks between the other guest tables. Tomas half snorted into his hand as he tried to hide his laughter.

 

“Oh my gods, he’s more fussy than you.”

 

“Shh, quiet!”

 

They put their heads together as they found themselves plates.

 

“There’s no way they’re going to find him chrysanthemums. It’s kind of amazing seeing someone else end up on the wrong side of him.”

 

“Tomas, keep it down!”

 

“He’s still sitting there with his arms folded. I don’t think he’s going to move until he gets his tea.”

 

Kuai glanced behind. Tomas might be right.

 

“Let’s just get some food, I’m starving.”

 

The table was spread with every kind of European delicacy one could wish for breakfast. It all looked odd to Kuai.

 

“Look at this, it’s amazing! I want to try everything!” Tomas picked up a pair of tongs and aimed for some fried green chillies.

 

Kuai smiled slightly and lifted a metal lid to a sizzling grill of sausage and bacon.

 

“Tomas!” He hissed, “Tomas!”

 

“What?”

 

“What did that last page in the mission file say about eating?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“You said you read that bit! I didn’t finish reading the list!”

 

“It’s standard practice that we don’t stick with the Temple diet while away on a mission, isn’t it?”

 

“Is it?”

 

“Everyone does it.”

 

“Yes, but-”

 

They both glanced behind them. Bi-Han had his back to them, arms still folded at he sat at the table waiting for his tea.

 

“Damn. I’m not missing this opportunity, this food looks amazing. I’ll never get to eat like this again.”

 

They paused, each holding empty plates before the laden table. Tomas chewed his lip,

 

“Is this the kind of thing Sub-Zero would get angry about?”

 

“I don’t know! Why are you asking me!?”

 

“He’s your brother!”

 

“He’s a total enigma. I’ve no idea!” Kuai eyed up all the fried meat in front of him, “Sometimes he sticks to Temple rules like he wrote them himself, sometimes he laughs at them and just does what he likes!”

 

“I’m safe with these chillies I think, they’ve got no cheese or meat on them. I wanted to try yoghurt with those strange looking berries though. Uh, I guess sugar will do. Hey look spinach – maybe we could hide some bacon under that?”

 

“But pork smells so strong. I think we have to go all out one way or the other.”

 

“Gods, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation on the morning of an assassination.”

 

“You think he’ll suggest taking the target out tonight?”

 

“Yep. We already talked about it while you were sleeping.”

 

Kuai’s face fell,

 

“But... I’m the one who spent ages working on the strategy and planning...”

 

“Sure, and we’ll use that, but after the intel I gave him, Sub-Zero thought tonight would be a good opportunity to strike.” Tomas stacked five pancakes onto his plate.

 

Kuai said nothing.

 

His friend leaned over and pulled a rasher of bacon off the grill. He dropped it into his mouth and shrugged,

 

“Mmm, that’s good. Ah- hot. You should try it while you can.”

 

Kuai took an austere breakfast absent of meat and dairy back to the table. He kept his eyes glued to his food as he ate sullenly.

 

“Sir, your tea. Made according to instruction.”

 

Bi-Han unfolded his arms as a teapot was set down. He took off the lid, leant forward and sniffed. He nodded once and the waiter departed.

 

“Nice! If there’s enough, can I have some, Bi-Han? I kind of miss tea from home.” Tomas sounded bright and enthusiastic.

 

“Of course.”

 

Kuai heard the sound of tea pouring into a small cup. It was reassuring and peaceful, but he kept his frown firmly fixed on his food.

 

“Observing the Temple diet, I see.”

 

Tomas shifted in his seat next to Kuai as Bi-Han spoke. There was a clink as Bi-Han set down his cup,

 

“I prefer to try some of the local dishes when, I’m abroad. The Temple insists on the strict diet being kept, but I’ve never seen the harm so long as it agrees with one’s stomach.”

 

Bi-Han got up and left for the buffet table.

 

“Shit.” Tomas looked down at his piled high plate. “If I hadn’t filled it up so much I could of gone back for seconds in anything I wanted!” He sighed, “At least we’ve got good tea. You want some, Kuai?”

 

“No.” He did. It smelt so good. It smelt like a small fraction of home after a long dragging week of chaos.

 

“Huh, OK.” There was quiet. A slight wind ruffled through a red flowerbox sitting near them. “Look, you’re not mad about Sub-Zero and I talking through some preliminary ideas about tonight without you, are you?”

 

“No.”

 

Quiet again.

 

“We didn’t make any firm decisions, Kuai. If you object to this evening we’ll listen to you.”

 

“I didn’t say I objected.”

 

“You’re being difficult.”

 

“I’m not.”

 

Someone laughed at something on the table behind them, Kuai turned and scowled at them. They immediately shut up.

 

“You’re making everything cold. Stop being so grumpy or it’ll start snowing.”

 

Kuai speared a skinned pear with a fork and stuffed it whole into his mouth.

 

“Thanks for the advice, by the way,” Tomas continued, “I did as you said and my arm hurts much less now.”

 

Kuai looked up and his temper melted a little on catching Tomas’ eyes. They were gentle and appeasing and genuine. Kuai sighed and nodded,

 

“Good.”

 

Bi-Han sat down at the table with a full English breakfast, drawing Tomas’ and Kuai’s glances simultaneously.

 

Kuai sat back and sipped from his teacup. He blinked in surprise and glanced over at Tomas who had a sly smile on his face as he concentrated on his food. Kuai sighed again, enjoying the chrysanthemum tea from the cup Tomas had switched.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A break from angst violence and existential doubt. They only young, someone let them have fun >:o  
> Thanks to all readers for your continued notes and feedback here and elsewhere. I always like hearing from you!


	24. The Strategy

“We have information on one night’s rotation. It’s not enough to establish patterns, but it is enough to establish weaknesses. Kuai, did you look over Tomas’s report that corrected the map we were using?”

 

They were back in the stuffy bedroom with the windows thrown wide open as a mid afternoon sun blazed through. Tomas was standing on the bed trying to fix the air conditioning.

 

“Leave that, Tomas, you’re shaking the map.” Tomas did as he was told and reluctantly dropped to the bed.

 

The map by now was a collage of pins and notes all arrayed at precise locations.

 

“I read the reports and have updated my strategies accordingly.” Kuai kept his posture casual and languid, hoping to conceal his worry that all his plans might be shunted out the window. Bi-Han indicated for him to continue.

 

“Tomas, in your report you mentioned that the garden behind the apartments – the only one that can be accessed from the cul-de-sac – you said the wall had been raised to around eight feet high?”

 

“And topped with barbed wire.” Tomas was squinting up at the air conditioning unit.

 

“Pay attention, Vrbada!”

 

Tomas’ head snapped back to the map and he mumbled an apology in Sub-Zero’s direction.

 

“I took an average of the time between each guard patrol that comes round into the garden. It’s about six minutes. More than enough time for us to get over that wall, provided its fairly simple to get round to the back of that garden.” Kuai leaned over to check the map as he spoke.

 

“Did you account for the guards on the higher floors of north building? That’s heavily armed and its east side has a clear view down into the garden.”

 

Kuai’s heart fell at his brother’s question. He hadn’t considered that.

 

“Although it will be black,” Kuai defended. “They won’t see much from inside a lit room two storeys up.”

 

“There are motion sensor lights in the garden,” Tomas added.

 

“There are? Why isn’t that in the report?”

 

“Oh. I thought I put that in. It _is_ here on the map though.” Tomas pointed to one of the hundreds of notes pinned to the board. “I mean I could smoke over the wall and disable the lights, but then they wouldn’t go back on when that guard came back six minutes later.”

 

“Which would alert them to our presence, that won’t do.” Bi-Han frowned.

 

Kuai ground his teeth in irritation. He would have eliminated that line of thought hours ago if he had had that information,

 

“Tomas, did you say you think it’s the third floor of the north building that Kasun is likely to be in?”

 

“Hmmm. Yeah. There or maybe the fifth floor. There was a lot of security there too.”

 

“And what about on the top floor?”

 

“Kind of empty when I went past – you guys are the ones who observed guard patterns though.”

 

“You want to go in through the top of the building?” Bi-Han asked, “It’s eight storeys high, a lot of levels to get through before you get down to the target’s floor – a lot that could go wrong. Remember our intelligence is much weaker when it comes to what’s inside these buildings.”

 

Kuai shook his head,

 

“But we can’t go in from the ground floor. It’s too dangerous. Any movement they don’t recognise will be immediately treated as hostile.”

 

“You can’t know that.” Tomas frowned, “They might be paranoid, but it’s a public road, they’re not going to come out guns blazing the moment they see a stranger-!”

 

Bi-Han held up a hand and stopped Tomas talking,

 

“Go on, Tundra.”

 

“The locals know not to even set foot on the street.” He thought back to the children who had left their prized ball, “They’d immediately know we were intruders. If we allow ourselves to be glimpsed for even a second on that street, the best case scenario is we’ll be detained. Worst case, they recognise us and shoot to kill. We can’t risk walking up that street even in disguise.”

 

Bi-Han nodded. The reassurance warmed Kuai.

 

“Your full plan then, Tundra?”

 

Kuai took a deep breath,

 

“The apartments on the left, I mean – on the west side – they have fire escape staircases all the way down their sides. We approach from the road on the other side, ascend using the fire escapes, get onto the roof-”

 

“Okay, yeah, and from there we can get onto the roof of the north building where Kasun is and start clearing the floors one-by-one, Kuai that will takes like three years. You do realise its summer and we’re a long way north? We’ve got about five hours between sunset and sunrise, not even counting dawn and dusk, so make that more like four hours. _And_ we have to get back out.”

 

“Tomas, are you going to let me talk or are you going to gabble incoherently for the rest of your damn life-”

 

“Enough!” They both quieted before Bi-Han’s anger. “It’s a wonder you got anything done before I found your sorry selves. Take it in turns to speak and at least pretend to act like adults!” They glanced off in different directions under the admonition. “Kuai, continue.”

 

“What I was _going_ to say,” Kuai shot a glare at Tomas, “is once we were on the roof of the west building, we can slide down to a relatively unguarded window in the north building, on a floor much closer to Kasun.”

 

Tomas and Bi-Han looked at him.

 

“Slide with ice?” Kuai clarified.

 

Tomas looked agitated,

 

“Have... have you done that before?”

 

“Well... no... but Bi-Han has. I remember you telling me about it when I was younger.”

 

Bi-Han frowned,

 

“For mobility and positioning, yes. I can’t say I’ve used something so indiscreet in the heart of an assassination mission though.”

 

_Indiscreet_ . Kuai’s self esteem crumple into a heap. He kept his face hard and determined to hide it,

 

“Why not? It’s fast, it’s efficient. An ice slide placed at the right moment will get us where we need to be quickly but not blindly, like one of Tomas’s teleports would. We’d only be visible outside in the cul-de-sac itself for a matter of seconds. That’s not being indiscreet, that’s being practically invisible. Plus we can melt the ice afterwards. It’ll be like it was never there.”

 

There was a long pause. Slowly, Bi-Han nodded,

 

“I’m not opposed to the idea.”

 

Kuai’s cheeks warmed and he felt his chest tingle.

 

“And how do we get back out,” Tomas said sardonically, “ _Slide_ back up?”

 

“No, idiot. We teleport. We know where we’re going on the way back out.”

 

“Yeah? What if the guards change? Didn’t think of that, did you, K-”

 

Bi-Han stood up suddenly. Tomas and Kuai flinched back. Sub-Zero raised a hand and clenched his fist tight. Ice gathered to it so thick and fast it looked like he had put on a gauntlet of diamond.

 

“One more _argument_ that happens in my presence...” He hissed through gritted teeth, “And I will freeze you by your necks off the side of this building!”

 

Tomas and Kuai looked at each other with wide eyes. Then Tomas frowned,

 

“But Sub-Zero, the sun would melt the ice-”

 

“-And you would fall to your untimely deaths on the street floor below, leaving me with some peace and quiet!” He picked up the note book with guard rotation details and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

 

“Damn that’s some temper.” Tomas leapt up and immediately began trying to fix the air conditioning. “Can’t you do something about this heat, Kuai? It’s unbearable in here. Hey, you don’t really think he’d hang us by our necks out the window, do you?”

 

“No. People might see us. It would endanger the mission.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.” Tomas rattled the vents with his fingers and hit the side of the box. The unit stuttered and gave a whir. “Finally something’s going our way!” His face fell a moment later when he realised it was pumping out hot air. Kuai sighed on seeing Tomas’ horror and dismay. From where he sat he threw a lazy blast of ice at it and froze the air conditioning unit solid. There was quiet for a moment. Then the air filled with a strange cracking sound. The unit broke away from the wall and fell onto the bed.

 

They looked at each other. Tomas picked it up and turned it over,

 

“Oh cold, cold.” He juggled it in his hands before shoving it under the bed, “Our secret, Kuai.”

 

Kuai looked up at the gaping grate whole above them,

 

“One of many.” He said, but without his usual resignation. He stood and peered into the vent shaft. It was small, less than the width of his forearm. He sent a wave of cold air flecked with ice crystals down it. He heard it rattle up the vent shafts. In a room further down the corridor, someone exclaimed suddenly.

 

Kuai pulled away and sat back down thoughtfully.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter of plans before the mission gets under way :o
> 
> Poor Bi-Han trying to organise serious business and these two keep irritating him. Thanks for the continued support! I wish you all good holidays :) Next chapter should be up sometime next week.


	25. The Viper's Nest

It was a still hot night. No wind blew and nothing stirred. Open windows stood wide with perfectly immobile curtains pulled across them.

 

“Oh, great night to pick, Tomas. The night where every gods damn thing can be heard for miles.”

 

“Shut up, it wasn’t my suggestion!” Tomas hissed.

 

“You just went along with everything he suggested and steamrolled over my ideas, I understand.”

 

“Because your ideas have been a non-stop fountain of success. Forgive me if I’m not weeping tears over the loss of your famed flawless strategies.”

 

A shadow appeared beside them,

 

“Is there a problem?”

 

“No.” Tomas and Kuai replied simultaneously.

 

Sub-Zero narrowed his eyes at them over the top of his mask.

 

Tomas and Kuai were in a back alley hiding behind a large dumpster. Their alley looked onto a side street with access up to the roof of a building just west of their target.

 

“I’ve checked the cul-de-sac where our target’s located and there’s currently no action. We’ll let the dusk get a little darker and then make our move.” Bi-Han continued, ignoring their guilty expressions.

 

A shiver of excitement stole through Kuai. Tomas elbowed him in the rib,

 

“Stop doing whatever you’re doing. You’re making it cold.”

 

“What, how do you know that’s me and not-” Kuai winced as a painfully tight grip closed on his upper bicep.

 

“This is your _one_ chance to pull back this _epic_ failure of a mission!” Bi-Han was practically spitting through his mask. “If I hear even the slightest childish bickering from you from here on out, I will leave you both neck deep in this and you can find your own way in and out.”

 

Tomas and Kuai both nodded very quickly in assent. Kuai assumed the admonition was over and that he would get use of his right arm back, but instead his brother dragged him to one side, away from Tomas. He set Kuai with still icy eyes and said softly,

 

“You disappoint me.”

 

All Kuai’s excitement drained and the colour left his cheeks.

 

“I always knew Tomas had little respect for sobriety, but I thought my own blood kin would know when to grow up and take his missions seriously.”

 

Kuai’s lip trembled behind his mask.

 

“Pull yourself together. I didn’t fly all this way just to see you fail.”

 

Kuai nodded and blinked repeatedly. When his brother let him go Kuai reached to rub where the grip had clamped tight on his arm. Bi-Han melded with the shadows and crept back up to the alley entrance.

 

“What’s got him so stuffed up this evening. Someone go get the chrysanthemum tea.” Tomas’ voice had softened from earlier.

 

Kuai shot Tomas a glare and pulled his hood up over his hair, rendering him anonymous. He heard Tomas murmur from behind him,

 

“Grouchy cryomancers times two. I was worried I was running short.”

 

Kuai joined his brother’s side silently. A long wide road lit with orange street lights lay before them. Cars passed up and down intermittently and the occasional pedestrian strolled sedately passed, enjoying the warm evening. Their steps sounded flat and empty in the still night.

 

“I’m sorry.” Kuai looked up at his brother’s mask. It did not turn towards him. “I won’t fail you. I _am_ taking this seriously – I do take my missions seriously!”

 

Nothing. Kuai looked down. The gutter of the road was dusty and littered with crumpled crisp packets paused in their adventures by the windless calm.

 

“It is difficult when the Temple first lets us outside. We are expected to grow up so fast. One minute children who know nothing of the world, and the next moment assassins expected to perform their duty with immaculate expertise.”

 

“I’m not a child! I turned twenty already, a-and I’ve done missions in at least four different provinces in China! Just because I haven’t been out the country before this doesn’t mean-”

 

Kuai flinched as a hand resettled on his arm. It was gentle this time though, stilling him and silencing their conversation. He looked down at the gutter again. It was darker than it had been before. Kuai glanced up and this time Bi-Han caught his eye and nodded. He held up a finger and indicated. Bi-Han slipped out the alley and moved across the road. He had a fluidity to his movements that awed Kuai and redefined the standard for perfection in his head.

 

Tomas was at Kuai’s elbow,

 

“Time to go?”

 

“Time to go.” He affirmed.

 

“Kuai,” Tomas stopped him just before he followed. He had his earnest voice on, “Don’t let him get to you. You’re a good assassin. Already one of the Temple’s best after only two years on active missions. Don’t compare yourself to him and don’t let him put you down. Especially not when you need your confidence.”

 

Kuai glared sidelong at his friend,

 

“I _am_ confident.” He strode out after his brother.

 

The three of them moved in and out of darkness, avoiding the pools of light shed by wan streetlamps. The high block of flats that backed onto their target street were tall and ill lit. Steel railings framed concrete steps up to blank oblong doors set into grey face buildings. Curling high metal staircases wound up the fronts at intervals along the street. Although it was dark, a number of apartments had bright lit orange windows.

 

Kuai pointed further up the street to a staircase with less activity in the flats close by. Soon it would be too dark to point to anything. Kuai hoped he could remember all the Lin Kuei whistles meant to aid groups co-ordinate by night. He had known them perfectly when he first graded into adulthood, but thus far he had only been on solo missions and never had need of them in the outside world before.

 

Tomas stopped them when the reached the base of the fire escape staircase. He glanced left and right before vanishing into smoke. He reappeared at the top of the flight as only a dim shadow in the dulling light. He began prowling the top step, eyeing the best route upwards.

 

Bi-Han turned to Kuai,

 

“You go next.” Kuai said. His brother looked for a moment like he might disagree. Kuai saw the fraction of battle in his eyes that resigned itself to putting trust in Kuai. Kuai’s heart swelled. He knew with what reluctance Bi-Han gave up control.

 

He watched as Bi-Han climbed the steep stairs. He was quick, but not too fast to make noise.

 

“ _Bog!_ ”

 

Kuai whirled round. Through the street had been deserted, an apartment door below street level was part open. A young man, lighting a cigarette stood in its frame. He looked up at Kuai from the bottom of a small flight of steps up to the street. His thin shirt hung loose, exposing the lower part of his neck. Kuai estimated he could shoot a blade of ice straight through from this distance. “ _Khellouin? Eto rano!_ ” He young man sounded amicable if a little surprised as he pulled a smoke from his cigarette.

 

Kuai froze where he stood.  _Kill or talk? Kill or Talk?_

 

“Party.” He gestured to his no doubt unusual outfit.

 

“Ahh... party. _Priiatnaia viechierinka_.” The man stubbed out what was left of the cigarette, and waved, “ _Dobroy nochi, drug_.” He stepped back inside and shut the door behind him. Kuai stood stunned. He heard an engine grumble in the next street over and saw the swing of headlights. He leapt onto the staircase and ran lightly up them.

 

Tomas and Bi-Han were gone by the time he reached the top. He jumped and caught the roof edge with his fingers. He pulled himself up easily and ran up the sloped roof to where the silhouettes of his fellow assassins stood out dark against the pricks of stars glittering behind them. Bi-Han tilted his head.

 

Kuai’s heart was pounding as his emotions welled with frustration.

 

“I don’t know what the fuck just happened. One minute I was-”

 

“Keep your voice down.” Tomas hissed.

 

“Someone saw me!”

 

“Did they raise an alarm?”

 

“No... the guy... smoked a cigarette and thought I was going to a party.”

 

“Leave it,” Bi-Han said, “We don’t have time to correct him now. I’ll do it on the way back if there is time.”

 

“Correct-?”

 

“Kuai?” Tomas interrupted him and tugged on his arm. “Which window did you mean we should try and enter by?”

 

From the peak of the rooftop there was a clear view down into Kasun’s cul-de-sac. Everything looked much more real up this close. The armed sentries making their rounds were particularly lucid. Kuai retrained his eye and pulled a his thoughts from concern into strategy. The shadowy buildings and squares of lights became flat, two dimensional lines in his mind. He saw clearly the flaws and weaknesses he had scoured the map for, and matched them up with the picture he and Bi-Han had built from notes on movement the night before.

 

“The fourth floor. The quiet one between three and five, the two floors where our target may be located. And go for the second window from the end. It will give a better angle to try and shoot ice at.”

 

Bi-Han nodded and began prowling along the fine line of the rooftop between the two slopes that dropped to nothing. Kuai and Tomas followed along behind him. Bi-Han stood still, calculating and watching. Then he turned and gestured to Kuai. Kuai looked at him vacantly. Bi-Han gestured again.

 

“I’m not... you’re doing that. We agreed!”

 

“No, you assumed. Hurry up, we don’t have all night.”

 

Kuai shook his head. From his brother’s posture he knew he was rolling his eyes even though the dark obscure all detail.

 

“You have to learn some time, Tundra. And this is your mission.”

 

Kuai backed away wobbling on the precarious rooftop in his dismay.

 

“Not _here_! Not _now_! You promised you were going to help me! Bi-Han, please I don’t want to. There’s too much at stake- I know you say learning under pressure is good but I-”

 

“Elder gods, guys! It’s not even ten P.M. and we’re on the edge of an armed compound, can we please not do this now! Bi-Han, he doesn’t want to fucking do it are you going to help us or not?!”

 

The air felt colder.

 

Kuai swallowed. He looked down into the dead end alley with its circling lights that marked the torches of armed guards.

 

“Very well,” Bi-Han said softly. His voice was laced with a menacing tone that Kuai had learned to steer clear of.

 

The elder assassin stalked cat-like down the angled slate of the roof. As Kuai watched he felt a hand give his arm a reassuring squeeze,

 

“No fucking way I would have let you build a bridge of ice. Suicide wasn’t in the job description.”

Kuai pulled himself back into business and tried to ease the fast tempo his heart had taken.

 

“Cheers, Tomas, glad to know I inspire trust.”

 

Sub-Zero looked out over the edge of the building. He raised his hands and Kuai saw them glow a familiar glacial blue, fractaling quickly into crystalline white. Sub-Zero placed the heels of his palms together and aimed downward, shooting forth a glittering spray of ice. He jumped off the building no sooner had the first foot of frost hardened before him. Kuai heard Tomas gasp as they watched the assassin freeze a fine arc of sheer ice beneath him, gliding gracefully down to the sill of a window far below. He stopped himself with firm palms on the brick wall stepping lightly onto the tiny margin of sill. He had the window opened in moments and vanished inside.

 

“A small part of me was hoping his perfect ass would end up on pavement and that we’d have to identify his body only by the colour of arrogance in his blood.”

 

“Shut up that’s not funny, can you see him? Did he give us a signal already, I can’t see anything.”

 

“He’ll know its too dark and whistle I imagine.”

 

“Can you remember all the whistle commands?”

 

“Can you not?”

 

“Shut up, Tomas, of course I can, I was just asking.”

 

A low quiet whistle sounded twice, mimicking the faint call of an owl. Tomas and Kuai looked at one another.

 

“I’m going to teleport over.”

 

“You don’t know what that means, do you.”

 

“It had a non-threatening ring to it. Unlike everything else Bi-Han says or does.” Tomas vanished into a wreathes of silver and Kuai saw him reappear precariously on the narrow window sill. His arms waved wildly as he tried to balance himself. A hand shot out and grabbed him robes, dragging him into the room.

 

Kuai was alone again. The still night air was hot and unpleasant. He checked below. No one seemed to have noticed Tomas’ floundering, or the sheer crystaline path of ice carved into the air. He jumped, cold flowing through his veins and adding to the bridge his brother had forged, keeping his momentum going. Air rushed past his face and the open blank black of night gaped about him. He kept his focus forward and the great square of the window came up fast before him. Momentum shot him forward and he bowled strait through the open space and rolled into the room beyond. He came up after a breakfall onto his feet and immediately took stock off where he was.

 

The dim room was a mismatch of grey shapes awkwardly lit by the filtered orange of streetlights. The room was fleshed out with bulky furniture all draped in white linen. It gave the place a haunting feel, like tens of bodies crouched over in hung sheet robes. Kuai shuddered.

 

Two figures were in the dark space between two windows.

 

As Kuai approached he saw the half light catch the rim of his brother’s mask.

 

“Planning on demolishing the wall to the next room for us, Tundra?”

 

“Sorry, went a lot faster than I thought I would. Glad you opened that window first. Did Tomas nearly fall off the window sill?”

 

“Idiots, the pair of you,” Bi-Han snapped and began to explore the room.

 

Tomas stepped forward, his body shimmering smoke in the strange light. He shook his head and sighed, glancing back out the window.

 

“You going to melt this, Kuai?”

 

“No names!” Came Bi-Han’s hiss, snaking back to them through the quiet furniture.

 

Kuai nodded and stretched out his palms, urging the ice to return to him. Bi-Han circled back round to him as he finished.

 

“Three doors. Two on the north wall, one on the east wall. This room is long, like a corridor.”

 

Kuai gently set the latch back on the window and turned to his brother,

 

“More likely to find a staircase by the east door, but if you want to clear this floor fully we should take the north doors first. I don’t imagine we really want anyone creeping up behind us, not when we have the floor above and the floor below to check for the target.”

 

“Agreed. You and Smoke take the door to the right, I’ll deal with the one on the left.”

 

Kuai wound his way between white folds of cloth hanging dormant and leering on unseen furniture. There was silence as he and Tomas took up positions on either side of the door. He could see from his friend’s posture that he was ill at ease. They nodded to one another. Kuai put a hand on the curling bronze handle and inched it down. It squeaked slightly. He pushed the door and let it swing wide, ducking back behind the wall. He saw his friend glance round then back. He did so too. The room was dark but lit by a long rectangle of cream light streaming in by a tall window. It shed a fine butter-like slip upon a handsome sturdy desk. He nodded again to Tomas and stepped into the room, keeping his back pressed to the wall and taking care not to let his shadow fall outside the darkness. He felt the press of bookshelves in his back. As he grew more accustomed to the shade of black in the room, he began to see more objects. Stout short tables with flourishing arabesques in their legs, a globe hanging still on a stand of steamed wood, glass cabinets that caught moments of moonlight and hid their treasures by the reflections, a still chair, empty and skeletal before the window. He saw the insubstantial shift of his friend moving in and out of smoke and shadow as he checked into the corners and crevices of the room.

 

When they were sure the room was empty, they both stood either side of the window and glanced out. A high walled garden was boxed in on all sides by crumbling concrete apartment blocks.

 

“Strange.” Tomas whispered. He glanced up around the room then back out again. “The outside of the building is just another of those mass-built concrete apartment blocks, but the inside... look at this – all rich made and fine crafted antiques. Like a gutted shell concealing a chest of treasure.”

 

Kuai followed Tomas’s gaze and shrugged. He had never really paid much attention to material objects, their craftmanship or worth. He supposed some of the things in this room did look more ornate than those in the Czech woman’s kitchen back in Belgrade, but they were all mysterious to him.

 

“Kasun’s an important guy. Perhaps these are his things and he had them moved from Belgrade.”

 

“Maybe.” Tomas ran a hand over mahogany sheen of the table.

 

“Don’t.” Kuai warned him, “You know the Grandmaster says local constabulary can track people down by the prints left on an object. They can know you were here just from what you touch. Cyrax said he saw an police officer do that once. Knew a man’s name just from the mark of his finger.”

 

Tomas rolled his eyes and let a ream of smoke sift from his hand and cloud the desk. He wiped his sleeve over the surface.

 

“Happy?”

 

Kuai indicated the door way with his head and began to head back. He he ground his teeth when he realised Tomas had stopped in front of a bookshelf.

 

“Russian...” Tomas murmured as he ran his fingers over the spines.

 

“Its too dark to even tell – and how do you know those aren’t Serbian words as well as Russian ones? Come on lets go.”

 

Tomas reluctantly pulled away and they re-entered the hallway stealthily. Kuai peered between the draped shapes of dull white, looking for any sign that their position might be compromised. His friend was at his elbow checking behind them.

 

Tomas vanished suddenly in a plume of smoke, reappearing a few meters away palms out ready. Kuai whirled round, icing his fists to balls of crystal. He saw the unmistakable lean of his brother’s form. Kuai relaxed but shot Tomas a eyeful of irritation.

 

“Bi-Han, gods don’t creep up on me like that.” Tomas put his hand to his heart, “You half scared me to death. This places gives me the creeps.”

 

Sub-Zero stepped out of shadow into moonlight,

 

“I trust your room has been cleared, lets move. And less talking. I could hear you two whittering away from the next room over.”

 

Kuai tilted his head in apology and followed the line of Bi-Han’s finger to where he was being directed. The three of them closed in on the end door. Tomas and Kuai took the left side while Bi-Han took the right. On his nod, Kuai turned the handle very gently. It pushed open noiselessly. Light flooded the quiet corridor, immediately casting twisted elongating shadows. Kuai peered round then pulled back. He looked at Tomas in confusion and shook his head. He peered back round again.

 

He had been expecting a grey concrete stairwell, or perhaps another corridor. Instead their was a balcony rail looking out into a dark expanse. Dim lights from lower floors suggested an immense hall cut through several storeys of the building, like some enormous palace. Kuai glanced quizzically at Bi-Han. The elder assassin was quiet. Kuai could see from his posture that this surprise was not welcomed by his brother either. Bi-Han motioned to Tomas to go on. Kuai moved aside for him and watched as his friend edged forward, stepping onto the balcony, hugging the wall, and disappearing from sight.

 

Moments passed in silence. Kuai could hear his heart thudding loud in his ears. He hated sitting by doing nothing while Tomas scouted ahead. The strains of helplessness sent his limbs tense and patience felt like it was being fine ground in a pestle and mortar.

 

He saw an uncharacteristic shift in his brother’s position and looked up. There was something gentle in Bi-Han’s eyes. In the places where words could not reach him and their fates were tight close together, there had always been that look ready for Kuai. An anchor for him to hold onto whenever the halls of the Lin Kuei were difficult to weather. It comforted Kuai now, and bolstered his strength. This was merely an unforeseen setback that needed to be calculated into their plans. All things could be overcome. All things could be defeated.

 

Tomas returned in a shiver of smoke and silver. He motioned them into the safety of their darkened corridor and took them aside.

 

“This floor looks quiet from a peripheral glance. Seems to be a patrol on the floor below though. There’s a big wide staircase that winds down. Very open, very visible. Couldn’t see any immediate other ways down. Could be a back route behind one of the doors, I guess.”

 

“Any idea what’s with the big open hall? I thought this was apartment blocks?”

 

Tomas shook his head,

 

“Looks like its been here a while. All I can think is this place is something big, using the front of the apartments to conceal the interior from passers-by. I’m guessing this isn’t all for Ranu Kasun. Looks too big, too old, too permanent.”

 

“Then what?”

 

“Some kind of secret service, I imagine.” Sub-Zero spoke for the first time in the exchange. Tomas and Kuai looked at him.

 

“Shit,” Whispered Tomas after a long silence. “What do we do?”

 

“The mission.” Sub-Zero still seemed impossibly calm.

 

“I bet fucking Sektor knew this was going to be a pig’s ear of a mission and gave it to Kuai and I deliberately. I bet he-”

 

“Stick with the plan. “ Sub-Zero cut through, “We clear each floor until we find Kasun.”

 

“But Sub-Zero-”

 

“Smoke.”

 

The severity which which the word was said ended all disagreement and conversation. Kuai took a deep breath and nodded for Tomas to lead on.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. The end is within sight! I estimate this story will be around 30 chapters total. More Bi-Han being irritated. Who let this disfunctional family run secret stealth operations. Thanks for your continued support!


	26. The Ice Within

The atrium glowed faint gold. Light filtered up from the floors below, casting irregular shadows across their path. An enormous grunge brick façade of apartment blocks stood before the splendour of the wide multi-levelled hall. Its strange stunted windows that matched up with nothing sat lost and bewildered before the expansive grandeur. Tomas had called the place a shell. That felt appropriate to Kuai. This place had been stripped of its insides, its floors gutted and fixed up with an elegant interior that stood at stark odds with the poverty its outside suggested.

 

They had made their way quietly through the remaining doors on the fourth floor. As expected, it had thus far been silent. Their progress was slower than they would have liked as their flank was exposed to a sweeping staircases that spiralled from above them and stopped at each level before it trailed to the ground floor. Aside from a clunky looking lift, the staircase was their only option for moving between levels. With both the floor above and the one below as top priorities for their hunt, decisions needed to be made quickly.

 

Kuai motioned for his companions to follow him into a darkened bathroom, all tiled in jade mosaic.

 

“We could use the empty lift shaft to access the floors rather than the staircase.” He had done so before when infiltrating a sixteen-storey glass business tower to assassinate a Hong Kong CEO on the top floor. The man had had a public face of stone, but when his life was on the line, he had begged and pleaded just like any other. “Provided the lift is in use on another floor, we can prise open the doors and use the shaft to get to the other levels.”

 

“And pray no one calls the lift while we saunter along in our death-trap tube of death.”

 

“That staircase is just as much a death-trap tube of death.”

 

“ _Boys,_ ” Bi-Han grated, silencing them immediately, “Its not a bad idea. We can at least assess the situation when we’ve prised open the doors.”

 

Kuai shot Tomas an I-told-you-so look and slunk after Bi-Han. Tomas poked him in the rib as he went passed. Kuai glowered at him and put his finger to his mask for quiet. Tomas mock copied him and rolled his eyes.

 

The fourth floor was relatively easy to move around now that they knew it was empty. The trouble was sound carrying from other floors that kept setting them on edge, and the risk that anyone at any moment might make use of the stairs, with their sweeping panorama of the open balcony.

 

Bi-Han stopped at the lift. The call button had an electronic display that read ′G’. Kuai blanked for a whole second, trying to think which number the symbol represented, before he recalled that it was not an Arabic numeral.

 

“Ground floor. That’s good for now.” Bi-Han murmured. He ordered Kuai with a finger and the two of them let ice run through their veins. Four hands glowed blue in the dim dark and glittering shavings of ice sprung to their fingertips. Two long icicles formed in their hands. Kuai knelt and wedged the ice between the doors while his brother did the same at the top. Tomas glanced about them as the cryomancers began to prise the lift door open.

 

“Come on, come on.”

 

Kuai paused. Footsteps sounded above them. Tomas followed the sound with his eyes over toward the staircase.

 

“Sub-Zero, we should go.” Kuai touched his brother’s shoulder.

 

Sub-Zero shook him off, pulled his icicle back and slammed it hard between the doors. Kuai blinked. Ice furled up the split between the doors collecting and spreading as fierce white burrs stacking faster than the eye could see. The ice spread and hardened forcing the doors apart and pushing them aside. Footsteps sounded hollow on the staircase. Bi-Han pressed his palms to the wall of ice he had made. The ice retracted fast to him, melting under his touch.

 

“Move.” He said and swung himself into the lift shaft.

 

“Smoke...” Kuai held the doors apart. Tomas glanced once more behind them to where the footsteps were sounding on the curling stair. He followed Kuai into the gaping black mouth of the shaft, careful to avoid the puddle of melted ice as he stepped.

 

The lift doors slid shut as soon as Kuai let go. Within was as dark as the Lin Kuei Temple at night. Kuai immediately felt a wave of calm slip over him. He reached with steady, searching hands for holds in the metal frame or cabling. Each time he pulled his weight up in the darkness he felt the pleasant strain and burn of his muscles working to lift his bodyweight up in the sheer vertical black. He could hear Tomas’ breath rattle softly below him. He could feel his brother’s breath chilling all the air above him.

 

As his eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, he could see the shape of the floor five door with its slit crack of light splitting its middle and faintly bordering its outside. The lithe form of his brother twisted and pulled himself up into the doorway, where he blocked out the light. From the way he stood, body pressed flat against the doors, Kuai guess there was very little ledge this side to stand on. He climbed up to his brother’s level and reached out to the thick lift cables, hanging on them to see better.

 

“Where am _I_ meant to go?” Tomas was under his feet.

 

“Shh!” Bi-Han had his ear pressed to the doors.

 

Kuai heard Tomas huff.

 

In the deadly silence they heard a faint  _bing._ Kuai glanced down quickly and his eyes met Tomas’s. The cables under Kuai’s fingers groaned and began to move.

 

“ _Fuck._ ” He and Tomas said simultaneously, jumping off to cling limpet-like to the shaft walls.

 

“Sub-Zero, the-”

 

“Shh!”

 

The cables whirred and began to move faster. There was not enough space for the lift to pass them. Standing here they were definitely going to be crushed.

 

“Sub-”

 

“Shh!”

 

“Bi-H-”

 

“ _Quiet._ ”

 

Kuai felt the cool metal under his fingers warm with sweat. He swallowed. Tomas climbed up beside him and the both glanced anxiously up at Bi-Han, still leaning into the door.

 

“ _Fuck._ ” Tomas whispered. “This is not how I wanted to die.”

 

“You know how you want to die?”

 

The lift was a black square growing larger beneath them.

 

“I thought maybe, alcohol poisoning would be a good way to go. Here likes Tomas Vrbada, died of gross negligence in consuming ten times his bodyweight in good beer.”

 

“Is the door below still open? Can we get back down to it?”

 

“Closed behind us. Be my guest if you want to go down and try get it open again.”

 

The black of the lift swelled impossibly large in size. Kuai’s breath seized sharply in his chest and he heard Tomas swallow and try to flatten himself further again the shaft wall. His fingers met Kuai’s instead of the hold. Rather than shaking them off, Kuai’s tightened his grasp around them and closed his eyes tight.

 

Another faint  _bing_ sounded below them. Kuai looked down. The black square had stopped getting larger. The cables were juddering to a halt. The lift had stopped below them at floor three. He disentangled his fingers quickly.

 

“You were fucking _holding my hand_ , you baby,” Tomas whispered in his ear.

 

“No, you held mine. You’re the one that thought you were going to die.” Kuai was blushing furiously anyway. A Lin Kuei assassin should face death without emotion or fear.

 

“Wait til I tell Bi-Han.”

 

“If you tell him I’ll kill you myself.”

 

“Stop _talking_ down there!”

 

Tomas leant in close so that their voices wouldn’t carry,

 

“Did he even know we were in danger? Did he even notice? Please tell me he had a plan he was going to put into action in time.”

 

Light split into the shaft with blinding contrast. A square of bright white ignited the wall above them. Bi-Han stood silhouetted in the open door way for a moment before slipping to one side. He motioned for Kuai to climb up and wait by the opposite side.

 

From his perch, Kuai could see out onto the west wing of the fifth floor. It’s layout was much the same as the one they had just left. Though it was brightly lit, Kuai could see no sign of anyone.

 

“See anything?” His brother’s voice was hushed. Kuai shook his head. “Stay calm. Someone’s coming my way. On my command, kill them.”

 

Kuai’s stomach dropped and he felt the blood leave his face. Everything was happening too fast.

 

“Wait-”

 

“Get ready.”

 

Kuai tightened his grip with his left hand on a wall pipe.

 

Hollow clomping footsteps sounded on the wood like oxen carrying water over cobbled village streets.

 

He saw the flicker of a shadow mar the doorway of light. It coincided with his brother raising a finger.

 

Kuai swung out suddenly. His right hand grabbed a hand full of clothes and his legs wrapped around a body. He swung back into the lift shaft Using the momentum and one hand, he snapped his victim’s neck. The crack of bone sounded loud in the quiet. His legs released the body and it fell ragdoll-like, strangely weightless in its tumble, dead before a sound could be uttered. Her face was young and puzzled. Her glasses we still on, though slightly askew. They had a green frame, and clean lenses that flashed slight gold. Her hair was still neat, with only a few hairs stray. It was a beautiful auburn red. Kuai had never seen red hair before. Her nose was straight and proud. Her cheekbones pronounced and characterful. She took great care in her appearance, Kuai guessed. Her smart suit trousers had a press mark down the side, and her blazer had every button done up. Each button shone. The dark had swallowed her up by the time she hit the roof of the lift two floors below.

 

“Good. Let’s move.” Bi-Han stepped out of the dark lift shaft into more shadows on the fifth floor. Kuai followed him.

 

The first rooms they checked were empty. Tomas was no longer light-hearted, and Bi-Han’s temper had dispelled into something much more amiable.

 

Kuai moved with difficulty, his mind returning to the perfect freeze frame image he had of his victim. And the way her body had taken away Tomas’ laughter as she fell. He wondered what else had died with her.

 

Kuai pushed away a wash of conflicting thoughts that tried to eat through his stomach up to his throat. He looked at his brother, professional and never more at home in that mask and hood.  _A live body is just another closed door between me and my target_ . He had told himself this enough times but the message still had not stuck. It at least got easier every time though. The absence was always deafening, but it was quicker each time he killed to push the distraction away. He followed routine paths in his head that skirted the uncomfortable questions he felt rising. With Bi-Han before him as a role model Lin Kuei assassin, it was easier than he previously thought possible.  _I was probably only shaken because she was a woman. The Grandmaster says our enemies are no longer easy to spot. He says in a modern world, a woman in a fine dress might well be a trained killer. We are to remove obstacles without discrimination. Never underestimate the potential for any person to be an enemy. They are not like us. They have not been through what we’ve been through. They are not family. The Lin Kuei are family. People out there are not real the way Tomas is real, the way Bi-Han is real. The way people who rely on me are real. People who are put in danger when I hesitate. Why should a stranger with red hair take precedence over a friend who always stole food out the kitchen for us when we were still hungry. Or a brother who owned up to my mistakes and took punishment in my stead. The world out their lives its life oblivious to me. Why should I not live oblivious to it? It is hard enough to look after myself and my own with the Grandmaster eagle-eyes above us. I cannot be the keeper of all the world. What do I owe it? Let it see to its own keeping. And let it not get in my way._

 

Bi-Han sent him and Tomas to clear one rooms on the floor. They stood either side of the door way in perfect silence, just as they had not half an hour before hand on the floor below. That moment somehow now seemed a world away. There was something in Tomas’ eyes. It looked part way between concern and something almost fearful.

 

“Kuai-”

 

“Shh.” Kuai pressed his ear to the door. He held up a finger to indicate how many were in the room.

 

“Shall we let-”

 

Kuai brought the finger to his mask for silence. He could here the heavy sole of a rubber boot slap on a wood varnished floor. When he closed his eyes he could see a picture building of the room beyond the door. The slight echo to those footsteps suggested a large, spacious, sparsely furnished room mostly filled with hard surfaces. The rhythmic quality to the steps suggest a patrol. This would likely be one of the guards. The slight rasp of breath was familiar to him as the sound of breathing through material, probably a balaclava. When the footsteps stopped before the door there was a slight pause before the handle started turning, suggesting a change in hands. There might be a gun being held largely by the leading hand. He let the door open nearly a foot before he stepped swiftly and calmly into its gap. A figure dressed in black and over six-foot tall stood stunned for a second. Kuai did not even need to think. He reached out and grabbed the guard’s neck. His fingers found the place where the balaclava stopped. He side-stepped behind the man formed a knife of ice. The man’s reaction kicked in, but the rifle slung over his shoulder slowed him, splitting is attention between offence and defence. Startled fingers went for the trigger while his back arched ready to ram Kuai away. Kuai slit his throat whilst neither of those two things occurred. An explosion of gurgling red blurted out. The man began to rasp and gasp in his death throws. He hands flailed and went automatically to the knife in his neck. Kuai dragged the man backwards and stuck his blade back in deeper, ripping it through the flesh he found there and severing anything important still connected to the skull. When he finally let the body drop, the head lolled at a bizarre angle, with hardly and muscle left to attach it to the torso.

 

Tomas came in and gagged.

 

“Elder Gods, Kuai- you nearly ripped his fucking head off.”

 

“Codenames only. Hit that light switch.”

 

Blood seemed to be everywhere. Even Tomas had flecks on him. They all vanished under the cover of darkness.

 

“Lets move the body under that desk.”

 

“I’m sure no one will notice the fuck off pool of blood in the middle of the room.”

 

“If the light’s off, they may not. Stop swearing and help.”

 

They dragged the remains to an alcove under a handsome desk and stuffed in the limbs that spilled out.

 

“Oh gods. If someone finds this we’re in so much trouble.”

 

“Quiet. It had to be done.”

 

They moved back to the doorway and looked out.

 

“My feet are covered in blood. I’m going to be walking it everywhere.”

 

“Why did you step in it?”

 

“Are you kidding? There’s enough blood to fill the Qinghai Lake here.”

 

“Take your boots off then.”

 

“It’s probably all over your feet too.”

 

They met Bi-Han half way down the corridor barefoot and covered in blood. Kuai’s clothes had changed from blue to red. Bi-Han looked at him. There was silence for a moment, then Bi-Han indicated that they should move on. One room remained unchecked. They took up each side of the door. Tomas stood behind him and hissed in his ear,

 

“Chill the fuck out, Kuai, you’re scaring me.”

 

“You can hold my hand again if you like.”

 

“I’m serious, be careful. You’re not acting yourself.”

 

“We’ve got a job to get done, Smoke.”

 

The door opened suddenly. An armed guard walked through, dressed head to foot in black with a bullet proof chest protector and a semi-automatic assault rifle slung over one shoulder. Behind him came a tall lean man with a narrow face, thinning hair and a crisp suit. He talked down his nose to heavy set man with greying waves of hair that framed an agitated, square face.

 

“How can they see nothing?!” The heavy set man was saying. His English was thick and barely comprehensible. “Did they dress up like these men here with hoods on their eyes so they are blind!”

 

The crisp man’s lip twisted in displeasure. He did not turn his head to look behind and spoke in a clipped Russian accent.

 

“Our operatives are more than capable, if that is what you are implying, Mr Kasun.”

 

Kuai’s eyes widened and he tried to get a bet a look at his target without drawing attention from the three armed guards that followed up the procession exiting the room.

 

“You told me your friends in Moscow would take care this two days ago. I see no bodies. No bodies but your own all over Sankt Peterburg news. You told me General Korgev values my friendship. Where is this evidence. Where is my friendship?”

 

The party moved to the wide staircase.

 

“The Kremlin recognises your previous esteemed position in an independent sovereign state and accords you some privileges, Mr Kasun, but I think I do not need to tell you that your situation here is perilous to say the least.”

 

“What? Perilous-?! You-”

 

“When the world wants a witch hunt, Mr Kasun, it is only a matter of time before a man’s worth, even a previously very powerful man’s worth, becomes... a burden upon the host nation.”

 

The conversation faded down the staircase with them.

 

Kuai felt his limbs tremble from the taught stillness he had kept as the party walked passed, barely a few inches from his nose.

 

The three of them stood and breathed evenly for a few moments. Tomas broke the silence.

 

“Their footsteps stopped on the third floor. Let’s finish this.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mission getting hotter, people getting colder :0
> 
> Thanks for the continued support everyone.


	27. The Kill

Kuai felt strangely detached from all about him. Much of his anxiety over the fate of the mission had gone, leaving only a firm certainty that the end was within grasp. He felt ghost-like in his surroundings – a spectre flitting through a fictional world filled with consequences and cares that had no meaning to him.

 

He looked down into the dark abyss before him. The drop down the lift shaft was two storeys. He glanced behind him toward the mismatched apartment windows lining the great atrium wall.

 

“It’s past midnight, we don’t have long.” He jumped. The deep black bloomed about him. The air was tepid warm, just tilted with the faint smell of death. He sent cold to his fingers and his hands lit the shaft ethereal blue. He shot forth a reel of ice, catching the angle of his descent to slow his fall. He kept the ice flowing so that a spiral wound him all the way down to the third floor, where the top of the lift blocked passage further. He stepped lightly onto the lift roof. The sprawled deformed body of a woman, broken and twisted, lay at his feet. Above him, half hidden in the darkness, hung a crystaline white spiral of ice, stunning in its delicacy.

 

He shifted the body with his foot, hunting with his toes amidst the drying, sticky blood for irregularities in the metal. He clenched his fist and let the startling azure of cryomancy shed its unnatural light. He bent down, put his fingers into a grate and pulled. It stuck fast. He reached and touched a blue finger to its edges. Sharp frosts collected under his fingertip. He drew a line around the grate. The metal made reluctant popping and cracking sounds as the cold forced it to become brittle and iron nails cracked in their places. When Kuai pulled the grate away it snapped easily. Its shattered latticework splintered like matches.

 

Kuai felt the air chill around him and looked up to see his brother following his icy path down. He came to a stop beside him. Bi-Han glanced upward once toward the ice spiral, then looked at Kuai and nodded. Kuai felt his insides warm. That would be all the compliment he received for perfecting the move, first time, in the middle of a mission. It was all he needed. The confidence inside him strengthened. He watched as Tomas approached. His friend was teleporting short visible distances so that he could check the path ahead was safe. As he landed, Kuai could see all the unspoken concern in Tomas’ eyes. Kuai jumped down quickly into the lift below to avoid them. Oppressive narrow sides boxed him in and mirrors judged him from three of the lifts walls. Kuai moved into cover on one side of the door. When the others had joined him, he pressed for the door to open.

 

The familiar warm yellow light of the atrium flooded the lift. Kuai immediately pinpointed the threats on this level. Two armed guards in full black stood conversing quietly on the landing. Bi-Han leaned in close so that his mask was beside both Tomas’ and Kuai’s.

 

“Finish them.”

 

Kuai snapped to the task. He kept to the confines of the walls and the little darkness they offered. Tomas was not with him, but he was not concerned. Speed was always something Tomas excelled at. Kuai’s mind was primed and focused. His brother’s silent praise and the relative simplicity of the targets he had silenced thus far had streamlined his thought. He honed the silence of his footsteps to an absolute quiet. He came up on the hulking dark shapes of his targets. He traced his path by the stretch of their shadows, cast by the hung heights of a high candelabra. A shimmer of smoke danced into light beside him and Tomas was next to him. Kuai felt ease settle within him where he had not even notice concern. They were so close to their targets now that they could hear the soft exchange of words between them. The murmured Russian sounded conspiratorial to Kuai’s ears. He and Tomas stepped perfectly in time with one another. Kuai’s hands glowed blue and a long sliver of white ice formed a keen knife in his grasp. Tomas drew a steel blade from his belt. Kuai saw it start to shiver and tremble in his hand. Grey whisps of smoke began to escape from the grip, and the blade glowed red with heat. He and Tomas looked at one another. Kuai nodded.

 

They leapt forward. Their palms simultaneously hit the back of their victims’ heads, delivering two stunning blows. They both brought up their knives and sliced each neck, one with searing heat that immediately cauterised the flesh, and the other with ice that, once the skin was cut open, froze the blood quickly. With the voice boxes of their still-live victims compromised, they set to finishing them off. Flailing limbs still tried to feebly fight back, scrabbling alternately for necks or assault rifles. Tomas and Kuai each took a guard’s head, gripping them firm between their hands. Kuai placed a hand over the guard’s mouth where the balaclava showed a hole. He let a spike of ice grow from his palm, through the mouth and up into man’s brain. He did not stop until the other orifices in the skull frosted over and ice protruded from nose, ears, and eyes. He stared emotionlessly at the silent death in front of him. He looked over at Tomas. His guard’s mouth was open in a scream that could not be voiced, body convulsing as Tomas’ palms, one clapped over each ear, slowly cooked the contents of the skull. Smoke billowed out of the nose and mouth, thick, black and filled with the stench of roast meat. When Tomas stopped the skin was blackened, and sunken, and charred about the lips, nostrils and the sockets where eyes had been.

 

Kuai stood tall and stepped over the bodies. There was no point moving them just yet when they had no safe place to store them.

 

“Did you catch what they were saying?” He murmured to Tomas, “I want to know as much as we can about the situation on this floor.”

 

“Yes.” Tomas had a disaffected, slightly cold air to him, “They were talking about their sons, and how they both play football for the local school team. And how they both keep asking their fathers to practice with them at home so that they don’t show up the team for the match on Saturday.”

 

Kuai looked at him. Tomas kept walking. Kuai thought it might be just as likely that Tomas made that up. From the dour quality of his step, Kuai had a sinking feeling that this was not so.

 

“Good.” Even Bi-Han’s rare praise was not enough to warm the cold numb feeling that was starting through Kuai’s limbs. “I listened at the doors. They’re in the room at the end. We should proceed with caution. I believe the two you took out were part of the entourage we saw earlier. Provided another patrol doesn’t come through this way soon, that leaves only one guard, another man, and the target in the end room.”

 

Kuai shook his head to try and straighten himself out.

 

“If we clear one of these rooms we can hide the bodies.” That was Tomas. Kuai’s mind was a muddle of something close to panic. Nagging, urgent worry pressed hard in his chest.

 

“We’re running short on time, Smoke.” Bi-Han was saying.

 

“I think we should hide the bodies. We spilled no blood and it may help our escape go more smoothly.”

 

Kuai barely saw his brother nodding to grant assent. Tomas took the lead in approaching a door not far from their target’s location. Kuai hung back, letting his brother and friend sweep the room while he hovered in the doorframe. He was dimly aware of helping Bi-Han and Tomas carry the bodies into another officious looking room filled with high book cases and robust tables and mirrors that stared his soul back in his face.

 

As they walked back to the door, Kuai caught Tomas’ arm.

 

“I don’t want to do it.” He whispered.

 

“Huh? What?”

 

“I don’t want to kill him. I’m not feeling well-”

 

Kuai cut himself off as his brother approached them.

 

“How do you plan to get inside, Tundra?”

 

Kuai looked at him, and knew that he revealed his reluctance in that glance. Bi-Han’s eyes turned from even to fierce. Kuai shrunk beneath them.

 

“I’m going to teleport in, Sub-Zero.” Tomas physically stepped between them.

 

“No.” There was silence. “This kill is belongs to Kuai Liang.” It was the first time Bi-Han had not used a codename this evening. “I’m overseeing this mission, and I _will_ see Tundra step up and finish this. He has yet to prove to me that he is an assassin worthy of sharing my colours.”

 

Silence again. Kuai kept his eyes averted so as not to let the uncertainty in them be seen again. _It’s not weakness._ He kept telling himself. _It’s not not that I’m afraid or disloyal._ _I just... I can’t... how can this be the way things are meant to be? How can this be it? How can I step in and out the shadows, taking things that I have no comprehension of the value of? I know that there are only the strong and the weak in this world. I know that I am strong and those who fall to me should have been stronger. I listen to the Grandmaster. But why does this... Why do I feel wrong? Why does all I touch feel wrong? Why does everything I...The world is full of fragile moments and everywhere I turn I step clumsily, snuffing out lights that cannot be replaced. I try to see it in your greyscale, Bi-Han, but the children on the street play games the way we played games... the way we tried anyway. And everywhere I look I see faces that remind me of kin, and I have to think, I have to really think_ hard _, in order to turn them back into the stones I am told they are. It gets easier... it gets easier with time. But I am still left doubting and wondering. They told us stories to keep us in line when we were young. I wonder if we are the nightmares told to the children out there. When the people I kill do not come home again... are there small Kuai Liangs there, who sit on their bamboo mat beds and wait up by the door with upturned eyes, wondering when their brothers will return? What if out there they are all like me, just living day to day with the lot handed them, surviving through another day, eating from the plate they are given? What if they too are my kin, the guards in black, or the lady with red hair, or the operatives on the train, or Brother Athanasios, or Brother Teador, or..._

 

He narrowed his eyes as he caught sight of vent protruding from the wall. He touched Tomas’ arm,

 

“Is that an air conditioning unit?” His mind snapped into focus, “You say there are three left in the room, Bi-Han?”

 

His brother turned sallow eyes on him,

 

“Yes.”

 

“Keep a watch by the door and let me know if one leaves. I’ll go in once they have. Try to keep the corridor clear for me, but if the alarm is raised before I’m back out, leave me and go. I’ll meet you back on the hotel rooftop.”

 

“Kuai-” Tomas stepped closer.

 

“I’m fine, Tomas. Don’t worry about me.”

 

Tomas’ head drooped. Sub-Zero nodded,

 

“Remember your training, Tundra.”

 

“I will, brother.”

 

Kuai approached the air conditioning unit, he could here faint voices through it from the room next door, too low to pick out. He fanned his palms and let a flurry of cold air whirl forth, hurling snowflakes through the small vent. Exclaims of surprise came loud and tinny from the grate.

 

“Keep going.” Tomas had his ear close to the vent. Kuai did so, watching the screwed up expression on Tomas’ face as he tried to interpret what was being said, “They think the temperature unit is broken. Sounds like they want to get an engineer in to fix it.”

 

A low whistle came from the door and they glanced over to Bi-Han’s silhouette. He nodded and stepped to one side of the doorway, keeping in its shadows. A balaclava clad guard strode past.

 

“Sokolov? Savin?” They heard him calling as walked.

 

“You should hurry,” Tomas urged. People are going to start noticing the shortage of staff around here. And Kuai-” Kuai looked at him. His eyes were unreadable in the dim room. Kuai could make nothing of them. “Damn it. It’s nothing. Just... be careful. It’s been a long night... And you know how it is when you... when you kill... you get lost in dark places sometimes... in your head. Just be careful, ok?”

 

Kuai raised an eyebrow at him and passed over the comment,

 

“Like you said, I better hurry.”

 

He moved quickly to the door frame next to his brother.

 

“The last guard sped up and went to the lift,” Bi-Han murmured to him. Kuai nodded and made to move. A hand stopped him. “You know the whistle if you need help?”

 

“I won’t need help.”

 

“But you do know it?”

 

“Of course I know it, it goes ′Bi-Han, please save me, I messed up again.’” He thought he would get a clout over the head for that, but instead he thought he saw a smile in his brother’s eye.

 

“Get going, Tundra.”

 

Kuai slipped into the corridor and moved silently to the next door. It was slightly ajar and a couple of snowflakes drifted out of it. He nudged it a little wider with a finger. He slid sideways in and stopped in the shadow of a wall cabinet. The room was pleasingly square and lit with dimmed lamps on a long low table. Black leather couches sat neatly along each of the tables sides. On one was crashed the stout shape Kuai knew to be Kasun. His leafy thin host was hovering near a side table that help a corded telephone and a luxury box of chocolates.

 

Several filing cabinets and glass dressers stood sentinel at the walls. The classy dark aesthetic had been disrupted by a flurry of snowfall Kuai was pleased to see, and a wall vent over on the left was still puffing cold air and kicking up flakes into the room.

 

“Now you will interrogate me in a room blasting freezing air in my face? Alexei, I hope you have good reason for keeping me up so late.”

 

Kuai dropped slowly to a crouch, so that the sofa hid him from view. He navigated a small freestanding bookcase and hid behind the back of the couch.

 

The stiff grey man called Alexei sighed. From Kuai’s hidden vantage point, he could see all the man’s bones go into the movement. A resigned defeat was in the gesture.

 

“General Korgev, contacted me. Given the recent developments and your predicament, he says he has arranged for a villa to be given to you.”

 

Kasun sat back with an expulsion of air,

 

“ _Ahh_! Finally! Not looking so good for you now, is it, my sour friend! You thought to be rid of me! Well, soon I will be gone – into the retirement I deserve! Is a quiet life too much to ask for? General Korgev is a generous man.”

 

The thin man folded his arms and hunched his bony shoulders,

 

“I still think this is a mistake, Mr Kasun. Your country cannot move on from its past if you do not face justice. Your evasion of arrest stands in the way of peace, not just in the old Yugoslavia, but also between your people and the rest of Europe.”

 

“I am just one man, Alexei. If they really want peace they will find a way to do it without me.”

 

“They want closure. And if anyone finds out that you dragged my country into your asylum, it will put pressure on the already tentative relations between Russia and the rest of Europe.”

 

“So now I am somehow to blame for all the political unrest in Europe? I don’t think so, Alexei. I’m sure it would make your job a lot easier if I surrendered to the ICTY, but to be quite honest, you can go fuck yourself.” The man stretched back and Kuai heard the weight press on the leather couch, making it squeak beside him. “I’m done with the world. I was happy in Belgrade living a simple life in hiding, I’ll be happy wherever you send me in Russia – even Siberia. I will grow plants. And read books. Maybe even write a few articles under a pseudonym. There are worse people out there than me, and worse crimes. Some even done by the people who want to see me on trial! I will not be a scape-goat for a generation gone wrong. Now, are you going to offer me one of those chocolates or are they just for show?”

 

Kuai poked his head above the couch. The thin man sighed and turned toward the table. Kuai pulled his knife and slit it straight across Kasun’s throat. He ducked back behind the sofa.

 

Ranu Kasun’s head tilted forward onto his chest. He died silently, bleeding out into his white dinner shirt with a look of slight surprise on his face.

 

The thin man opened the gold foil box and offered them to Kasun.

 

“What, not to your liking, Kasun? Seems everything is working out for you just as you planned. Once someone is given a villa by General Korgev, they’re untouchable.” The thin man sighed again and rattled the box, “Don’t make me stand here like a waiter, Kasun, I’ve spent enough of the last few years doing that.” He shook the box again. There was quiet. “Kasun? Ranu?” He stretched forward and shook the man’s shoulder. The body tipped over sideways, revealing the dark pool of blood.

 

Kuai was eyeing up the gap to the door way. A quiet fierce confidence was flowing through him. Here was one death he was sure would not be on his conscience. He honed his attention to his new predicament. He would either need to kill the last man in the room, or wait until he turned round before he could make a break for the door.

 

The thin man stumbled back and his hand went to the phone receiver. Kuai heard too late the spinning of the phone dial.  _Shit! The phone. He’ll call for help. And if the phone goes dead now, they’ll send reinforcements anyway. Shit shit shit. Bi-Han would have cut the phoneline first._ Kuai kneaded his fist into his forehead.  _I’ll have to kill him after he hangs up, then make a run for it._

 

“H-hello? This is Alexei Zima, may I speak with the Grandmaster, please?”

 

Kuai froze where he knelt. His face paled and he clenched his knuckles white. There was a long pause in which both he and the thin man held their breath.

 

“Yes. Yes, that’s correct. It’s Alexei Zima. The contract has been fulfilled, Grandmaster, I will have the rest of the payment sent to you immediately. Yes, very good. To my satisfaction. Yes, your eminence. Please see that my contact details are erased from your files, my superiors cannot know I have spoken with you. The transfer should have gone through by tomorrow midday. Thank-you. Yes, that is all. Thank-you, Grandmaster, thank-you. It was just in time, you have- I... understand. Of course. Of course. Goodbye.”

 

The phone was place back on its receiver. Alexei Zima sighed a long exhausted sigh. Kuai blinked several times. He glanced briefly round the side of the sofa. The thin man was still looking toward the door. Alexei pulled his shoulders back and wiped his face of emotion. He picked the receiver back up and dialled in a short code. He barked loudly in clipped aggressive Russian that Kuai could not understand.

 

He hung up and sank onto the seat opposite his victim. As soon as he sat down, Kuai darted for the door. He looked through the gap and saw guards already walking up the corridor. _So soon?!_ He swore in his head and rolled back to the sofa. His heart pounded loud in his skull. He moved in cover round to the back of the next sofa, then the next so that he was behind Zima. _I can hardly kill my employer._ He glanced toward the window, then over back toward the door. Kasun looked like he was sleeping peacefully on the couch. Kuai crawled on his belly over to the window and opened it a fraction. It squeaked. Zima leapt up and whirled round. Kuai shrunk into the shadows, his breath hitched in his throat.

 

The door was pushed wide and a guard entered with a cloth capped shorter man.

 

“ _Pan Zima?_ ”

 

Alexei Zima turned round slowly, eyes still lingering on the shadows where Kuai crouched.

 

“Uh...?” He said non-committally.

 

The guard spoke in broken English,

 

“Mr Kasun... wanted an engineer, sir? For ventilation too cold?”

 

“Oh... yes.”

 

From where the guard and engineer stood, Ranu Kasun’s body was obscured by the sofa.

 

Alexei Zima straightened himself,

 

“That problem seems to have sorted itself out. In fact...” His eyes wandered over to the window, “I was just now opening the window, as its gotten hot in here again. He moved casually over and hauled the squeaking pane upward. “There, much better. That’ll do thank-you. See this man out, Fyodor.”

 

The man in a cloth cap bowed,

 

“I can see myself out, _pan_.”

 

“I insist.”

 

Both the guard and engineer looked at Alexei curiously, then turned and left, shutting the door behind them. Kuai’s heart was beating very fast. The thin man seated himself again on the sofa. Kuai crouched in silence, trying to judge whether it was safe to move again.

 

“You better hurry. They will be here soon. I doubt your Grandmaster will be pleased if one of his assassins is found dead in a Russian intelligence office.”

 

Kuai knelt deadly still. He felt the sweat bead on his head and no amount of ice in his veins made him feel cooler. The room felt small and confining. He felt hunted, trapped, stifled, backed into a corner with his escape routes watched.

 

“I hope you don’t think ill of me. Having a guest killed. It’s not very seemly.” The man spoke softly to his darkened room. A clock ticked on a wall somewhere. “But it had to be done. I’m just a pawn in my game, as you are in yours. As Ranu put its so astutely, there are worse people out there than us, and worse crimes.” There was a sound of heavy thudding footsteps on a staircase. “And here come the cavalry. Adieu, warrior of the Lin Kuei.”

 

Kuai leapt for the window.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kasun is dead but trouble is not over for Kuai Liang yet.


	28. The Escape

Morning was crawling towards him. Its dew collected under his fingers, making it difficult for him to hold his weight as he hung from the window sill. Its light sifted faint and pink in the horizon, a soft prelude that clanged in his mind as he realised daylight would soon show him up for all he was. He swallowed as he took stock of his situation.

 

He was hanging below the window of Alexei Zima, the head of a subsidiary branch of some Russian intelligence organisation. A total sweep of the room by armed guards was happening just above him. _I need to move. Its only a matter of time before they check the window, and in this growing light..._ The problem was he was three storeys up, and the windows were small and narrow in an all-brick facade. Even if he managed to catch the sill of the window below him as he dropped down, he would need the same luck again to get to the floor below, or risk ending up impaled on a barbed wire wall beneath. He could try and form a slide of ice, but he was not confident he would be able to slow himself down before he hit concrete or wire. He would still be exposed from above and seen from the window anyway. He looked sidelong. It was not so far to the next window along, but he couldn’t risk entering a room on the same floor as the assassination with the guards on high alert. To his right the window would open into the room where Tomas and Bi-Han had been. They should have left by now though. He had thought about whistling to check and get their help, but with guards only a few feet from him, he could not risk it. If he went left, he might be able to skirt round the corner of the building and at least get out of view if someone looked out Zima’s window. 

 

He started to rock his body from side to side, his stomach muscles protesting and fingers aching as he swung his momentum toward the window to his left. He let go, flinging himself across the gap. His fingers clawed for a hold. He missed with one hand but snatched the sill just in time with the other. His eyes widened as he stared straight down into the darkness below, dangling by just one arm. He found his other grip and glance back the way. Voices were conversing beyond the window he had just vacated. He could make out Zima’s voice among them, curt and rife with emotion Kuai knew to be put on. He wished he could understand their language. He looked to his left. The corner of the building was nearby. The voices out of the window got louder. He winced, there was no telling how far a handhold round the corner would be. His fingers tested the mortar between bricks. It was slightly crumbly with age, giving him a fraction of space in which he might try to press his fingertips. He took a shaky breath and was for the first time thankful that he had wound up barefoot for the end of this mission.

 

In the growing grey of dawn, he reached out carefully. He tried to ignore the pressing time constraint and loudening voices. He needed all his concentration. He tightened his fingers in the brickwork, never once imagining that five animals style training would prepare his hands for free scaling the side of a building. He winced as the rough surface scraped his bare toes when he sought for a foot hold.  _Now let go. Just let go. Swing round. Its easy. You could do it easily if you were only a foot from the ground. This is no different._ The squeal of the window being pushed higher coincided with a black figure poking its head out the window and looking to its left. Kuai let go of the window pane. His stomach sucked in and his teeth clenched as he moved. He felt the hard corner of the building point into his chest as he searched for a hand hold on the other side. He dug his grip into the stone work and inched his way round the building. He saw the head at the window turn and with one massive effort, snatched the rest of his body round the corner. He paused trembling with exertion, hidden from view. He breathed quickly for a few seconds before taking stock of the side he was now on. A window a few feet away from became his immediate target. He blocked all thought of falling, being found, and awareness of tiredness and focussed solely on that sill. He moved himself carefully, trying to keep an even pace between speed that would cause him mistakes and slowness that would expend all the strength from his muscles.

 

When his fingers finally reached for the window sill, its two inches felt like the widest, safest, securest handhold he had ever felt in the entire world. His breath came in long trembling gasps. He permitted himself a second’s rest before setting himself to pulling himself up, wary of how much he had already put his arms through. He dragged his body weight up and spent a moment working out how the window opened. Now that his concentration was not being forced to its limits, he felt the length of the night and its tensions weighing heavy on him. He worked out that the window bent inwards like a door, and was about to set himself to picking the lock when he heard voices.  _So soon...?_ He thought for the second time in a few minutes. He bit his lip and felt his heart wrench with the unfairness of it all. The mission was done, when would the world let him rest? He looked down. Below was a narrow paved path leading to a small high walled garden. The one he had studied so meticulously, before Tomas pointed out its high barbed walls and motion sensor lighting. Suddenly all of that mattered very little to him in comparison to his present predicament. 

 

He did not let himself think. He saw a crack of light as the door to the room of his window opened. He jumped. Cool morning air rushed past him. He sent it cooler still as he shot ice out below him. He was coming up on the garden fast. Too fast. He curled his ice path in a spiral like he had in the elevator shaft, turning a full circle as he part fell part slid. He still came fast into the soft grass and had to roll out of the fall to break it more gently. He felt his shoulder bruise in the impact and blinked in the bright light of the motion sensor now lit in his face. He blindly shot ice in its direction. He heard a crack and a thud and the light vanished. He blinked again and felt the strain of the night in the burn of his muscles. More than anything he wished Bi-Han was here to take a lead in thinking through the next steps of his escape. The keen focus of his mind was collapsing into jelly now that his prime target had been eliminated.

 

He looked around him at the neatly kept beds. The moment was surreal as he picked out the bright shapes and colours of the flowers in the growing morning light.  _Move. Move. Move. You are barefoot and covered in blood and standing in a mask and a hood. You cannot let anyone see you like this. You cannot be seen on the street in daylight like this._ He pulled himself together and forced himself to scale the high wall. He stretched a hand for the top and snagged it on a thick reel of barbed wire. He grimaced and ground his teeth. He froze the wire and shattered it when it was brittle. He pulled himself to the top and stopped the gash in hand bleeding with a wave of cold. He bound his palm with makeshift bandages as he looked down into the next alley way. He heard footsteps on paving stones from back towards the cul de sac and jumped down without looking.

 

He ran silently through the streets, ducking in and out of shadows that grew smaller and smaller as the sun began to rise. The bare pads of his feet, already scuffed and bleeding from his window exit, were protesting the rough surface and stay stones and splinters of glass that lined St Petersberg gutters. Strident shades of red ignited the already pink stone faces of building and painted the streets gold. He sprung from their colour into the weakening darkness wherever he could, hiding behind steps, bins, around corners and under shop awnings whenever an early car passed by on the road. He saw enemies everywhere in the light and the returning colour of the world. His heart was firmly set on a new target.  _White empty mountains. Grey trees and a grey sky. Black curled roofs and high walls. Silence and peace._ Home was thousands of miles away, but in his head, if he could just get to the hotel rooftop, he would be there. Like a portal to another world, he could relax into the responsibility of his brother and friend. He would be rid of this long, grinding ordeal. 

 

The hotel loomed up before him. Its front doors opened onto a road already busy and lined with early morning commuters, dog walkers, and passengers off the early train from the nearby station. Kuai knelt in the shadows of a side street, impossibly close and yet distant from his goal. He could feel his bleeding toes and raw bare feet complaining, and the gash in his hand reopening as blood seeped through the makeshift bandage and down his arm. His biceps ached from the wall climb, his back and shoulder were blackening with bruises from the fall, and his fingers were red and stiff with the strain they had taken.

He looked again with tired, blurring eyes. There had to be a way to get to the hotel rooftop. The front of the hotel was classical in architecture, with wide stones, pillars and sills that would make it easy to climb. It looked straight down onto a street now swarming with people. It would be impossible to climb without being seen in the daylight. He bit his lip, looking from the bright open entrance to the bright conspicuous building front. He could feel panic storming through his chest as shadows shortened and the sun rose higher, sending its rays creeping toward his hiding place.  _Think. Think. You’re good at strategy!_ But all he could think of was that he was here, his mission end was there, and the sun was rising and time was up.  _This is the end. I came so close. No where to hide. They will find me. They will find me covered in blood and punish me for all the lives I have taken tonight. They will put me in a cell and before they can judge me with their petty courts and systems, one of my own kin will slip in and slit my throat before any more about my clan is discovered. Who would they send? Someone who hates me, like Sektor? Or would the Grandmaster make someone who cares for me do it?_ The idea of Tomas or Bi-Han being made to kill him caused his eyes to well up. He blinked back his tears and looked again at the unassailable hotel before him.  _I was only a little too late._ He thought back on the mission.  _I was always only a little too late._

 

He choked back his emotion but could not stop the coughing the took over his body.

 

“Sorry. I haven’t got the smoke under control when I teleport yet.”

 

Kuai whirled round, bright eyes glistening.

 

“How-!? How did you-!?”

 

Tomas looked tired, but had changed back into civilian wear and found some shoes. He dodged eye contact with Kuai so as to pretend he did not see the tears.

 

“- find you?” He supplied, “Ungh, more of a guess. If you got close to the hotel at all I figured you’d be in this alley. It’s the only one the sun hasn’t caught up with.”

 

Kuai could only smile with wells of open gratitude.

 

“Shit, don’t look at me like that. Come on, its time to go home. Your furious brother is pacing the bedroom like a tiger about to catch fire. Glad I found you before he devoured me.”

 

Tomas’ arms folded around him as he pulled him close. Kuai clung to him with aching arms and exhaustion exhaling through him. He did not think he had ever felt relief so strong before. Kuai’s world went to strange suffocating grey all suffused with tendrils of smoke. He was thinly aware of travelling up and through narrow gaps and under and over and round until-

 

The small, garishly decorated twin room pulled up sharp before him. Its quilted blankets and broken air conditioning had a homecoming twang to them. He had all of a second to appreciate their safety before immediately cowering before the fury on his brother’s face.

 

“ _Kuai Liang._ ” Bi-Han spat and pushed him hard against the bedroom wall. Kuai winced as his already bruised shoulder took the brunt of the force. “How long does it take to kill _one man_?! What’s wrong with you did you stop off to go sightseeing?! How is it humanly possibly to be so slow?!”

 

“Bi-Han...?” Tomas broke in tentatively.

 

“Shut up, Vrbada, I’m talking!”

 

“Sorry.” Kuai gave in a small voice. He reached to relieve the pressure his brother was forcing through his shoulder, but thought better of it. Instead he tugged the mask of his face and breathed deeply. “Sorry for making you wait.”

 

The anger in his brother’s eyes subsided and Kuai saw them flood with relief.

 

“Slowest godsdamn assassin in all China.” Bi-Han released him and abruptly set about throwing belongings scattered across the room into bags.

 

Kuai rubbed his shoulder as Tomas made rude gestures to him behind Bi-Han’s back implying his deficiency in sanity.

 

Kuai smiled slightly and shrugged. He regretted the motion when it shot pangs of pain through him. He winced again and blinked at the dizzy room that was beginning to swim around him.

 

“Can I go to sleep now?” Kuai asked. His brother’s ferocious method of packing looked very tiring.

 

“You can sleep on the plane.”

 

Kuai sighed and looked at his scuffed red toes. Tomas looked at him,

 

“Kuai, are you bleeding?”

 

Bi-Han whirled round.

 

Kuai pulled his bleeding hand into his chest,

 

“I scratched it on some wire is all.” He retreated further into the wall under his brother’s glare.

 

“Get changed and fix yourself up,” Bi-Han snapped, “We need to be out of this city before further measures are taken to stop our escape.”

 

Tomas nodded.

 

Kuai sighed. He was going home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out. It was done relatively quickly, but the previous chapter worked better as a cliff hanger while I worked on the next chapter to come. There's a little more to go yet. Tomas's point of view up next as Kuai is now the sleepiest assassin in all China. Stop being rude to him Bi-Han >:l


	29. Long Road Home

Tomas was weighing up his options. The air was so hot and still that he felt sick. If he irritated Bi-Han just enough, the cryomancer might bring the temperature down with his anger alone. Tomas scrunched up his nose in resignation. Bi-Han had a plan with microscopic details that only he knew, and any second wasted was likely to be severely dealt with. If only Kuai were still in action. He glanced at his friend, who was half-stumbling along the street, propped up by Tomas’s arm and sheer willpower.

 

Going home was not as easy as Tomas had hoped. After the momentous length of the mission, he had somehow assumed that they would be airlifted out with a hero’s welcome, or at least a pat on the back, or a nod. He sighed. The heat made the air before him waver.

 

“Kuai... Kuai can’t you make it just a little colder-”

 

Tomas felt a grip on his shoulder and started in surprise. He had been so sure the older cryomancer had been in front of them.

 

“Encourage him to use his powers in public again, Vrbada, and I will make you regret it.”

 

“Yes, Sub-Zero.” Tomas said dutifully. Bi-Han walked on. Cold mists sifted about him as his temper simmered. Tomas gave a wicked grin, then hurried to catch up and stay near the cooler air.

 

It was mid-morning and they had traipsed by foot across the city to an out of town train station. Not only had Bi-Han insisted on flying from a different city, he had decided it was too dangerous to use the central railway station to get there. They would catch a train from a smaller connecting line which would take them all the way to Moscow. Once there, they would get to _that_ airport, buy tickets and fly hopefully at some point in the next twenty-four hours. Even thinking about it made Tomas’ head hurt. It did not help matters that Kuai was practically dead on his feet. The mental and physical exertion of the mission coupled with a larger amount of bloodloss than previously admitted had Kuai very low on energy. Tomas had also calculated that of the three of them, Kuai had not slept in the longest amount of time. It was probably coming up on thirty-two hours without sleep for him.

 

The out-of-town station was compact with tall dark windows that yawned grim in bleak white, long walls. Tomas could feel sweat dripping down his neck and seeping into his clothes.

 

“Come on, Kuai.” He shifted his arm, helping his friend stand straighter.

 

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” Kuai murmured, eyes glued to the ground.

 

Bi-Han pushed open the double doors with much more force than necessary. They burst open at his touch and slammed back against the wall. He strode in and his head snapped this way and that. Tomas watched him guardedly as he helped Kuai.

 

Bi-Han headed straight for the platforms but was halted by turnstile gates. He pushed one. It did not move. He gripped it tight and forced it. The steel whined and there was a snapping noise somewhere.

 

“Bi-Han... what about tickets?”

 

“We’ll get them on the train.”

 

“No, I mean... I think the little gates need tickets to open.”

 

“This one’s opening just fine.” He pushed through the now complicit turnstile. Tomas glanced left and right. The station was relatively empty and it did not look like the vandalism had been noticed.

 

Fifteen minuted later they were standing on a hot crowded train. All the windows were open but the flow of air did not seem to let up the heat for Tomas. Every time an elbow from a passenger touched him he could feel a patch of sweat growing. He had found Kuai a seat and propped him up with their luggage. Somehow, in the tight confines of the carriage, Kuai had managed to droop himself over and half-fall asleep. Tomas could feel his tongue large and dry in his mouth and the sweat stinging his eyes. The shoulders straps from his luggage had painted stripes down his shirt. He closed his eyes and tried to think of anything but how hot it was. He looked up when he jostled into someone as the train turned a corner. Bi-Han had a mild frown on his face as he stared down at him.

 

“Sorry.”

 

Tomas glanced over to check on Kuai. Kuai was tipped so far over he looked like he was about to fall off his seat. The train sped over a rickety length of track and Kuai lolled back upright. He shook his head then looked around him, brow creased, then his eyes began to droop again. Tomas leaned back to avoid further awkward proximity with his superior. His nose remained an ungraceful few inches away from Bi-Han’s chest. Tomas’ hair was clinging lank to his face and he could feel sweat bead on his forehead. The air was heavy with heat and damp and moisture cloyed thick over his eyelids.

 

“Bi-Han, would y-”

 

“No.”

 

“You don’t even know what I was g-”

 

“Cryomancy is not some common trick to be summoned at whim.”

 

“I don’t think its common, I never think its common! But please, just a-”

 

He broke off when he caught sight of the ice shards in Bi-Han’s eyes. He sighed again and bowed his head in resignation. The large press of people around was stifling. It would be so easy to just vanish into smoke, to occupy that white silent world where all was flat and grey and worries were far away. For a second time that day he winced at a tight grip in his shoulder. He twisted under its pressure,

 

“Ah... _ah_ \- Bi-Han, _ow_ \- you’re h-”

 

“ _Idiot_.” Sub-Zero hissed. “You’re smoking!”

 

Tomas glanced down, his fingers were part way to insubstantial and his hair had gone from lank to soft and shifting and sifting on the air.

 

“Sorry!” He pulled himself out of the comfort of the world without senses and pushed away its inviting fingers. He winced under the Bi-Han’s still present grip.

 

“Pull yourself together. I can’t drag two of you along behind me. Step up your game, Tomas.”

 

Tomas thought that was harsh, given that he was the one doing all the dragging, while Bi-Han just strode about everywhere pompously breaking public amenities.

 

“Yes, Sub-Zero, now can you- _ah-_ ” Bi-Han released him. Tomas glowered darkly at the floor for the next twenty minutes, concentrating on not being hot and not turning into smoke.

 

Eventually the train had pulled through so many small villages on the outskirts of the city that the crowds thinned down to manageable. Most people were probably commuting home, Tomas guessed, leaving a more sane number of people travelling on to Moscow. There was even space to sit down later on. They pushed Kuai up against the train window and Tomas squeezed in next to him. He regretted this seating arrangement almost immediately, as it meant staring across the train table at Bi-Han for the next few hours. There was the additional difficulty that their legs were too long to fold neatly under the table. Tomas had to contort his awkwardly in order to avoid getting in Bi-Han’s way. He wished Kuai would wake up and say something to make the time pass a little easier.

 

Tomas had not spent much time alone with Kuai’s brother before. He had been an ever present figure in his childhood, but Tomas had always felt like Bi-Han was an avalanche waiting to cover all in a blanket of destruction if one set a single foot wrong. He had the unique demeanour of one who was perpetually calm, calculated, laid back, and an instant away from punching any person he met in the face. Not an entirely false observation on Tomas’ part. Bi-Han also had a kind of cold humour that Tomas had never found very funny. He had a particular languid derision that could pierce through the hardest armour. Tomas had long taken to keeping his head down whenever Bi-Han was around. It had seemed like the easiest way not to end up on the receiving end of any physical or verbal lashing. That said, it had been an incredible thing to see that cutting sarcasm levelled at someone like Sektor, whose relation to the Grandmaster made him untouchable when it came to physical retribution. And whilst it was true that Bi-Han would clout Tomas and Kuai hard over the head whenever he had found them sneaking round the Temple at night, he had never reported them. And every time Kuai spoke out in a class, or leant a hand to someone he was meant to compete against, or corrected a teacher’s knowledge of history, or insisted on taking on someone three times his size if they picked on a friend... (it was a long list, Tomas considered)... hadn’t there always been Bi-Han, ready to step in and fight his battles, take the blame and the punishment...?

 

Tomas watched the strange, cold man. He was staring off out of a window with a slight frown. His usually covered face was clean shaven, he looked strangely approachable and human in a polo neck sweater he had ripped the arms off when the temperature started rocketing this morning. It made a change from the highly traditional Lin Kuei robes he had chosen for himself and the mask that was almost omni-present, even during his time at the Temple these days. When had that happened? There had been a time when masks were just for missions. It went on as he left, and came off as he returned, laying bare a cocky smile for all the world as another perfect mission was added to the count. Tomas supposed there had come a time, perhaps to hide his emotions from jealous factions within the Lin Kuei, perhaps to better prove his professionalism to the Grandmaster, when Bi-Han had stopped taking off the mask.

 

“You’re staring, Vrbada.”

 

Tomas jumped and looked quickly down at the table,

 

“Sorry! I was just-... Sorry.” Tomas ran a hand back through his hair. It was lank in the heat again, “I was just thinking... I mean... It’s been so long since I last saw you without a mask...”

 

There was silence. Tomas cursed himself. The previous silence had been much more preferable to this one. He chanced a glance up. Cold eyes met his. He looked down again.

 

“We’ve been on a mission, Tomas. I take care to hide my identity. I should hope you and Kuai Liang do the same.”

 

“Yes, of course.” If he left the conversation there, this would not have to get any more difficult. Tomas was never one for running from confrontation. “But... I mean... I don’t often see you take it off even at the Temple.” The gaze definitely hardened. Tomas tried to temper his statement, “Not that it’s any business of course, Sub-Zero, I did not mean to pry-”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tomas. I always take my mask off in the Temple.”

 

Tomas lifted his eyes in cautious confusion. Bi-Han turned and looked out of the window again.

 

“I told you. I wear my mask to hide my identity. Like I’m doing now.”

 

Tomas’ face creased in further confusion,

 

“Bi-Han... I don’t... I don’t understand... You’re not wearing any....” He trailed off, finally grasping what the assassin was saying.

 

“Could you imagine what would happen if I revealed my identity to those on this train, Tomas? I would take off this façade of normality and become the assassin I am. That is why I say, the only mask I have is the one I’m wearing now.”

 

Tomas and Bi-Han sat in silence for the remaining two hours, interrupted only by Kuai’s intermittent sleeping and half delusional comments.

 

Moscow airport was so large the Tomas felt lost as soon as he had entered. Kuai was at least standing on his own, but from the look of utter bewilderment on his face he probably thought he was still dreaming.

 

“Tickets.” Bi-Han said decisively and began surveying the array of queue, booths and outlets.

 

“Maybe we should find some food, Sub-Zero. It’s been nearly a whole day since we’ve eaten.”

 

“You’re right, Tomas,” Tomas’ heart rose, “We should find food, that will fly us home to the Temple double as fast as a plane.”

 

Tomas looked away quickly to hide his hurt.

 

“Find somewhere to sit Kuai down whilst I go and buy tickets. He’s attracting attention with his gormless staring.”

 

“Yes, Sub-Zero.” Tomas said quietly. Then, “Should... should I buy the tickets? I can speak Russian.” And, more importantly, read it. Bi-Han had been standing in front of a Cyrillic sign that read ′tickets this way’ for the last ten minutes.

 

Bi-Han nodded curtly. He took his brother by the shoulder and steered him towards a row of seats. Tomas hovered nearby as he dug out wads of rubles and tried to count out a sensible number. He paused in his count as he heard a voice stand out above the background lull of the crowd.

 

“So tired...”

 

“I know. You’ve done well.”

 

“A rest, please.”

 

“Soon. Just a little longer.”

 

Tomas peered sideways out the corner of his eye, watching as Kuai’s head settled on his brother’s shoulder. Bi-Han reached a hand up and brushed a hair from Kuai’s face.

 

“You’re doing well. Just be stronger for a little longer.”

 

Tomas saw him lean forward and kiss the top of Kuai’s head.

 

Tomas stopped what he was doing. Bi-Han looked up suspiciously. Tomas dug ferociously and made a show of finding a particular note that he did not need. He made a beeline for the ticket queue.

 

He stood for some time just thinking. The queue moved quicker than his mind, and all too suddenly he was meandering his way through half-remembered Russian to ask for a ticket. The airport assistant tried to help him by switching to English and Tomas replied in Mandarin. Eventually he bought three tickets to Beijing and nearly caused a security scare by paying for the entire lot in cash. He was detained for seven minutes and questioned, and had to produce his passport, which did not help matters, as the birthplace was Prague and the issue of origin was the People’s Republic of China, apparently an uncommon combination.

 

By the time he got back Kuai was sound asleep on his brother. Bi-Han’s face grew into its customary frown as Tomas approached.

 

“Sorry for the delay,” Tomas took a proactive approach, “They didn’t like the cash payment.”

 

“You drew attention to yourself?”

 

“Yes, but-” He could see a fell light in the cryomancer’s eyes and something primal inside him cowered, “But I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about, Sub-Zero – I was alone and I told them I was a tourist. I explained that I had this much cash because I did not understand their currency. They apologised to me eventually and hoped I had enjoyed my stay.”

 

“Did you tell them you’d been to Serbia.”

 

The question was flat and unintoned.

 

“No, of course not.”

 

“Is there a Serbian stamp in your passport.”

 

Tomas pulled it out and flicked through with a sinking heart. There it was, written in plain Cyrillic. Serbia, Belgrade. _But Bi-Han can’t read it..._ He entertained the thought of lying for about a minute, before realising that he had a complimentary Russian stamp next to it. Given that he and Kuai had never visited any other countries before... it would be a short ruse and a lot of hell.

 

“... Yes.”

 

“Pick up the bags. We’re leaving.”

 

“What? Where to?! Bi-Han I’ve got the tickets now, it’s not so long til our flight. They won’t know we’re here until after we’ve left if they find out at all, what’s the worse they can do once we’re on the plane!?”

 

“Other than turn it around when they suspect the murderers of a top foreign dignitary are on board, you mean?”

 

Tomas could have screamed. Instead he took a deep breath and swallowed.

 

“What... what should we do?”

 

“What’s the next scheduled flight to depart?”

 

“I don’t know...” He glanced up at the departures board, “There’s one boarding in a few minutes time to London...”

 

“That will do. Go and buy three tickets.”

 

“But.... Bi-Han!!? That’s miles in the opposite direction! We-”

 

“Do as you’re told!”

 

Tomas hurried to a different ticket office. This time, before buying the tickets, he told an elaborate sympathetic story about why he was paying fifty-two thousand rubles upfront. He hurried back to the brothers.

 

“I’ve got them, but Bi-Han, we haven’t got time to check our hold luggage into the flight! What will-”

 

“Check the luggage into the flight to Beijing. I’ll see that someone from the Temple picks it up.”

 

Tomas watched the heavy canvass bags they had been carrying around for the last week vanish down a conveyor belt. He only wished that were him speeding off home to the Temple.

 

They pushed their way to the front of security and were hurried through, with much chagrin and frustration from the airport staff. To Tomas’ surprise, Kuai had immediately begun to run with them when required. Tomas doubted his friend would be running so fast if he knew they were boarding a flight that would take them even further from home.

 

In only a few minutes time they were sitting on a plane ready to take off. The air conditioning was kicking in and Tomas found himself just glad to be out of the heat. In more ways than one. Kuai looked happy. He had great dark rings under his eyes and kept glancing out the window, waiting to see the plane take off. Tomas’ heart went out to him. He decided telling Kuai they weren’t going home yet could wait. His friend was smiling and looked years younger. Hi tilted his head to see passed Tomas through the little oval window. He turned back to his brother and made some comment about hoping to see the sunset as they lifted off. Bi-Han made a non-committal grunt.

 

The light was orange, red and gold as it came sideways through the plane. All the shadows leant onto the floor and bright colours set the cabin ablaze. The plane pointed up and all the world outside tilted strangely outside the little windows. Gradually it levelled and the plane turned to face the sunset. Kuai’s face fell. Tomas saw him glance up at his brother. Something between confusion and betrayal showed on his features. Bi-Han looked straight ahead. Kuai looked out of the window again. Tomas said nothing. Kuai looked at his feet. In a small, quiet voice, he eventually said,

 

“Why are we going west?”

 

Neither Tomas nor Bi-Han answered him. Kuai became sullen and silent and eventually fell asleep. Tomas could not help feeling that this was somehow his fault. He looked over his sleeping friend to Bi-Han on the other side.

 

“What will we do when we reach London?”

 

The older assassin was quiet for a moment,

 

“First, I will contact the Temple. Then I will reassess the situation. Sleep now, while you can. The flight is only four hours. I will see that food is ordered for us.”

 

Tomas found it hard to sleep despite being exhausted. He could not get the picture of Kuai’s innocent disappointment out of his head. When he closed his eyes he drifted in and out of murky places between sleep and awake. His head was awash with grey mists and half remembered voices and something urgent but forgotten.

 

He woke up feeling feverish. Kuai and Bi-Han were eating ravenously out of tiny plastic trays. Kuai looked up and smiled at him.

 

“Got yours here.” He handed the clinical miniature tray over with its transparent lid. Within was an array of small packaged goods and all individually wrapped looking like they required far too much effort for the level of hunger rumbling through Tomas’ stomach.

 

When he finished eating he found himself hungrier than when he had started. The food had merely served to awaken his hunger rather than satiate anything. He looked at Kuai.

 

“Is this all there is?”

 

“It was complementary. We can purchase more from them when they come back.”

 

“You seem more awake.”

 

“Managed to get some sleep. Still feel like I could sleep for another three days.” Kuai stretched. “Where are we going?”

 

“London.” Tomas eyed his food tray for anything he might have neglected to lick clean.

 

Kuai sighed,

 

“Is there someone else we have to kill?”

 

“No, no. Nothing like that. Just... needed to take a detour to get-”

 

“Not here.” Bi-Han cut through their conversation. Kuai and Tomas fell silent.

 

Kuai sighed again. He stirred restlessly until his brother stilled him with a glare.

 

“Bi-Han, I’m hungry.”

 

“Stop whining.”

 

“Ask that nice lady for more food.”

 

“I’m not talking to her again.”

 

“Why not, I think she liked you. She couldn’t take her eyes off you. Reckon she appreciated your physique and- _ow!”_ Kuai rubbed the place his brother had punched him. He leaned over to Tomas, “An air hostess likes him.”

 

Tomas raised an eyebrow.

 

Kuai grinned at him. He looked up as an air hostess begun walking between the row of seats.

 

“Bi-Han! Here’s your chance.”

 

“Kuai Liang shut up or I will make you.”

 

“Come on, I’m so hungry.”

 

Tomas watched as Bi-Han uncomfortably addressed the woman. He ordered almost everything on the in-flight menu. It was certainly true that the woman spent more time looking at Bi-Han’s upper body muscle than she did concentrating on her task.

 

“Of course, of course.” She gave him a very particular smile.

 

“Did you hear everything I ordered.” Bi-Han was being unnecessarily sharp. Tomas was fascinated by the idea that this of all things was the way to make the great Sub-Zero feel insecure.

 

“Most certainly,” She gave another glittering smile then walked away. She looked back once over her shoulder and nearly tripped over a coat someone had left lying in the corridor. She scolded the passenger for the obstruction and hurried away.

 

“True love.” Kuai whispered.

 

“Shut up.” His brother growled.

 

Tomas was more interested in the food than the budding romance. He wolfed down everything he was given, feeling like he had not eaten in years. They attracted much disgusted attention from their fellow passengers as they demolished a sizeable proportion of the consumables on the flight.

 

When he had finished, Tomas could feel real sleep ready to take him away. He blocked out the sounds of the brothers irritating each other as Kuai pointed out that the hostess had returned to them another three times to ask if there was anything more they wanted.

 

This time when Tomas woke up, the flight was descending sharply. Kuai was fast asleep beside him and Bi-Han was flicking through a booklet pulled from the chair in front of him. Tomas made sure to wake his friend before the plane landed with a jolt. It paid not to let a cryomancer be awakened suddenly from sleep.

 

It was hard to take in that they were standing in another airport in another country, even further from home. The temperature was at least twenty degrees cooler here. He was at least thankful for that. Tomas blinked in the bright lights. By their own body clocks it was around midnight now. The clocks in London had wound them back three hours, so that it looked like their flight had only been an hour long, rather than four. Tomas yawned dispiritedly at the hour reading 21:03. He turned to the departures board and immediately began scanning it for a Beijing flight.

 

“There’s a flight leaving in three and half hours time that-”

 

“No.”

 

Tomas’ heart fell. He was beginning to feel like Bi-Han built travel plans along the lines of what would cause maximum discomfort to his companions.

 

“Follow me.” He led them to a information desk. He was easy and relaxed as he spoke to the attendant, “I have a friend who I want to check made their flight safely. They were due to catch a plane an hour or so ago from Moscow to Beijing. Did their flight leave on time?”

 

The attendant spend some time scrolling through information on a computer. Tomas knew Bi-Han well enough to tell that the assassin already knew the answers to all he was asking.

 

“Yes, sir. The flight left on time. 22:46 Moscow time.” Bi-Han waited expectantly, “But... let’s see. There’s... some kind a problem. The flight is being rerouted to Kazan International Airport. It’s likely to just be a refuelling matter, the flight is scheduled to continue after the stop has been made.”

 

“Thank-you,” Bi-Han said with an air of finality. He turned and they followed him as walked away. “And that is why we do not catch our flight yet. Our enemy are on high-alert.”

 

“That could have been us...” Tomas bit his lip.

 

“Indeed.”

 

“When can we go home, Bi-Han?” Kuai was blinking away his sleep.

 

“Well, the good news is that I doubt our enemies will be able to keep up the search for too long. The victim was being harboured by the Russian State and died in hiding inside one of their intelligence agencies. The will have to stage his death in another country if they do not wish to be implicated in an international controversy. The body is already not far off twelve hours cold. If they do no wish major suspicion to be aroused in an autopsy, the body will have to be found in the next twenty-four hours. The search for his murderers will have to be called off, or risk implicating Russian complicity in the victim’s death.”

 

Kuai was nodding like this all made perfect sense. All Tomas could think of was the ′twenty-four hours’ part of Bi-Han’s analysis.

 

“We have to stay here for twenty-four hours?”

 

“Not in the airport. That’s a little suspicious. We will catch a tube into the city, and use a different London airport to leave. But yes. In around twenty-four hours.”

 

Bi-Han went off to make further transport enquiries.

 

Tomas sat down heavily next to Kuai on a plastic orange chair screwed into the floor. He pushed his palms into his eyes and hunched over.

 

“We don’t even have a change of clothes. Or... or anything...”

 

“Hmm.” Kuai looked straight forward.

 

“I knew this was going to be a tough mission, but...”

 

“I guess once we... once I made a couple of mistakes in the mission, things sort of escalated out of hand. It could have all been a lot simpler if I hadn’t...”

 

Tomas knew Kuai placed all the blame for the mission complications on himself. There was some good reason for that, but his friend never needed help finding things to blame himself for. He took guilt upon himself all too easily.

 

“It’s fine, Kuai. It’s done. That’s the important thing. We can return home successful. There are some difficulties getting home without being noticed, but you were right to ask Sub-Zero to join us when you did. We have the best assassin in the Lin Kuei overseeing our travel. If anyone can get us back to the Temple incognito after a very high-profile assassination, it’s him.”

 

Kuai’s face lit up and his bright blue eyes caught Tomas’ with such unexpected gratitude that Tomas felt himself somehow embarrassed.

 

“I... thank-you, Tomas. That... It means a lot to me to hear you say that. I’ve been worried these last few days since you rightly told me off for asking Bi-Han here without your consent. I’m so glad you think I made the right decision at least once on this mission. I was worried perhaps I’d done the cowardly thing in just asking my brother to come and clear up my problems again – I know he’s always sticking his neck out for me and that I should have to deal with the situations I have created myself. But you’re right, neither of us would have thought to change airport after the mission, or to delay the flight home when we caused suspicion. Little good it would have done us to complete the assassination only to wind up in a Russian prison a day later.” Kuai Liang gave him a full, genuine smile that made Tomas melt inside.

 

“Stop that.” Tomas folded his arms and sat back, “You’re half asleep and not thinking straight.” The airport was mulling thinly with people. The only crowd gathered near the departures gate – taxi drivers all holding cardboard placards with misspelt names scrawled in felt-tip.

 

“Hmm I’m glad we got to eat on the plane. I can’t believe I was grumpy at breakfast the day before and didn’t eat properly before the mission. I’ve been so hungry for the last two days.” Kuai scratched his nose and his gaze drifted to rest on the floor.

 

“What?!”

 

“All better now though. I’m feeling much less faint.”

 

“Kuai, why didn’t you say s-”

 

“By the way, Tomas, can you re-dress my hand for me?”

 

Tomas stopped part way through his outrage, when Kuai proffered his palm. Before they left the hotel in St Petersberg he had roughly bandaged up the hand Kuai split on barbed wire during his escape. The bandages were drenched red and unravelling.

 

“What? Has that not stopped bleeding yet?”

 

Kuai looked at it and shrugged. Tomas ground his teeth and reached for his bag. His bag was on route to Beijing via Kazan. He cursed and felt through a tiny side satchel holding his money. Bi-Han had made them leave in such a hurry that Tomas had not had time to replace the first-aid kit in his canvas luggage. He had stored it quickly in light satchel instead. Another unlooked for favour that Bi-Han’s iron-fist had apparently bestowed upon them.

 

Kuai’s eyes slid to half closed as Tomas reapplied the dressing.

 

“Don’t fall asleep while I’m doing this.”

 

Kuai murmured indistinctly. While focussing intently on unwinding the bandages, Tomas found his attention snagged by a loitering group of youths in his peripheral vision. He narrowed his eyes. A tingling went down his spine and memories younger days in the Lin Kuei’s halls kept his guard up.

 

“You think they could be Russian intelligence?”

 

Tomas started. He had thought Kuai too tired to be aware of much, but as always he could pinpoint one of Tomas’ discomforts in an instant.

 

“No, no. I doubt it.” The youths were rangy and languid and draped on a billboard with half open dark blazers and mismatched shirts and loud voices that passed jokes to one another, “Just... reminds me of the way Sektor used to move about the Temple with his pack of aspiring cronies.”

 

“Hmm. They’re looking this way.”

 

“Don’t look at them. Can you pass me the water?” Tomas unravelled the last of the bandage and held Kuai’s palm up to the light. A savage gash still at least a centimetre open was weeping intermittently. “You need to stop using this hand for a bit if you want this to seal. Other wise your going to need a whole load of stitches. Not fun in your palm. What did you do, grab the barbed wire and pull yourself up?”

 

“Hmm, pretty much.”

 

Tomas shook his head. He could see their observers pointing their way and laughing to one another. They were probably around his and Kuai’s age, Tomas guessed. He poured water on Kuai’s hand. His friend flinched and the water immediately began to freeze.

 

“Kuai!?”

 

“Sorry. You surprised me, the ice just-”

 

“Sh-!”

 

One of the young men had broken away from the group and was sidling over with a casual saunter. He stopped a few paces away from where Kuai and Tomas sat. He hovered, pretending to interest himself in nothing, then looking back at his fellows passing silent grins and faces to them, drawing from their returned expressions to bolster his courage.

 

“Hey...”

 

Tomas capped the water bottle and set it down carefully.

 

“Hey, you with the pretty silver hair.”

 

Tomas’ heart sunk.

 

The speaker had a heavy London accent, and shining black shoes. That was all Tomas could tell of him while his eyes were firmly on the new bandage he was unravelling.

 

“I’m talking to you- you with the hair. What you going to ignore a guy just trying to start a chat? I just want a chat? What’s up? Why you ignoring me? Come on, what’s the deal?”

 

His cronies were edging closer. About four others, Tomas noted, sizing up which ones he should take down first if it came to it.

 

“Come on, mate, why you ignoring me? My mate Geoff just wants to know how you get your hair so smooth and pretty. He says it reminds him of his last girl. Wishes her hair looked as good as that. Got any tips mate? Any tips for Geoff’s girl?”

 

Tomas felt Kuai ′s hand stiffen in his. He pressed it slightly in warning as he began to wrap the new bandages about it. The shiny shoes stepped closer.

 

“What... don’t know anything about girls?” The young man laughed. His friends who had gathered to within a few yards of him all laughed with the same laugh too.

 

“Did you ask him about his hair, Harry?”

 

“It’s a good colour eh, looks alright on my gran anyway.”

 

The first man planted his feet before them and stuck his face in front of Tomas’s. Tomas blinked in surprise at the proximity.

 

“Why the fuck aren’t you answering me?”

 

Kuai leaned back then cracked his forehead down on the man’s nose. The sound of the nose breaking was faint but the spluttered abuse and shout of pain that came after made up for it. The man double over and clutched at his nose. Blood came quick between his fingers.

 

“Holy shit, Harry. That fucker just-”

 

The other younger men advanced, one cautiously to his friend, the other three menacingly towards Tomas and Kuai.

 

“What’s going on here?” Bi-Han had walked up in his polo-neck with the sleeves ripped off, holding an envelope brimming with tickets in one hand, and a fistful of banknotes he clearly had no idea of the worth of in the other. Whether it was his height, all the muscle he was showing or the addition in numbers, the confrontation sapped out of the remaining young men.

 

“Harry. Harry, come on mate, we got to check into our flight anyway. You want to get to Berlin before eleven we got to head.” The incapacitated Harry was still bent over clutching his nose. His voice was a kind of nasal rasp spoken through bubbles of blood.

 

“What!? No, way after that kid just-” His friend stood him upright, and Harry found himself at eye-level with Bi-Han. He backed off and shot Kuai a look of fury and hatred before hurrying to follow his friends.

 

“What’s going on here?” Bi-Han repeated, clearly still expecting to be answered.

 

Kuai looked at him easily and flexed the hand Tomas had just finished bandaging. He curled it into a fist.

 

“Just using my head, Bi-Han. Tomas told me to lay off moving my hand while it heals.”

 

Tomas sat back in the plastic chair and stared up at the airport roof domed and far away. _This can’t end soon enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our favourite trouble magnets jet around Europe finding new ways to make life difficult for themselves. Focussed on Tomas and Bi-Han's relationship in this chapter, thanks Kuai for passing out for a day so that we could see how awkward your brother and friend are together. Poor Tomas, this is the guy that gave him an ice burn as soon as they met up in Russia. NEXT WEEK: double update concluding our tale! Yep today I sat down and wrote the last two chapters. I'll say no more. *wipes away tears*


	30. Two Worlds

Tomas put his lips to the vibrant blue liquid at sipped. A riot of sweet and clanging flavours punched to the forefront of his nose and he screwed up his face. He dangled his feet from the bar stool and leant in for another sip.

 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, why would you choose that?”

 

“Huh?” Tomas turned to look at Kuai. His friend had three glasses lined up all filled with different sorts of fruit juice. The long polished wood of the bar stretched gleaming and deserted, catching the mood lighting shrugged off by deep silver cone lamps. A patient young bar tender leaned with one arm propped on the counter, her eyes were hooded in perplexed bemusement as she watched her lone customers. “Why _wouldn’t_ you choose this? Look at it!” The curiously twisted glass winked sapphire depths out at him, summoning him with its mystique and peculiarity. 

 

Kuai frowned and tasted from one of his own cups,

 

“I like this, what is this?”

 

The bartender looked up,

 

“Cranberry juice.”

 

“Cran-berry. What’s a cranberry?”

 

The bar tender pulled the carton back out the fridge and squinted at it.

 

“Dunno mate probably looks like one of these.” She pointed to the small red blobs depicted on the carton.

 

“I see, I see.” Kuai frowned in thought and sipped again.

 

Tomas leaned over the counter and squinted at the bottles.

 

“Is that green? Can you make me a drink that’s bright green?”

 

“Finish what you’ve got, Tomas!”

 

“I’m not the one that can’t hold their alcohol!”

 

“I’m not _drinking_ any alcohol!” Kuai leaned back on his stool and called to back to his brother. Bi-Han was sitting comfortably at a table reading a newspaper with a tall wine glass and a packet of peanuts set nearby. “Bi-Han, how many drinks did you say Tomas could have?”

 

The newspaper folded over a little so the Bi-Han could regard his brother over the top.

 

“I don’t care. As many as he likes as long as he can still walk onto the plane when its time to go. Mission’s over. You can do what you want.”

 

Kuai scowled at the response.

 

The newspaper went back up as Bi-Han added,

 

“But if he throws up on me when we’re on the flight, I’ll freeze him into his seat for the remainder of the journey.”

 

Tomas hesitated. He deliberated for a few seconds.  _You only live once_ .

 

His green drink tasted all bitter and turned his tongue a different colour. He stuck it out at Kuai, much to the amusement of the bartender.

 

“You boys not get out much?”

 

“Not much.” Kuai glared at Tomas then looked back at her, “What other fruits have you got that are special?”

 

The bartender thought for a moment and pulled open the fridge door with her boot,

 

“Hmm... pineapple juice?”

 

“Pineapples aren’t special.”

 

“Okay, man, whatever you say. I don’t know what counts as special to you kids.”

 

“Something exotic and not just grown everywhere.”

 

The bartender shook her head and leaned back on the counter. Kuai pondered a moment, then,

 

“Or... do you have food? Is this a food place or only drinks?”

 

“Normally just drinks in the evening,” She pushed stray hair out of her face and put a hand on her hip, “But you guys are here so early, the kitchen serves food til six pm.” She pushed a clipboard menu in front of Kuai.

 

Tomas experimented with dipping his tongue into his vivid green drink from different angles. The underside of his tongue tingled when the liquid touched it.

 

“Why do you call it a cocktail in English?” Tomas asked, “Is it do with chickens?”

 

“Huh?” The woman turned to him.

 

“What kind of animal is a scampi?” Kuai had the menu and inch away from his nose

 

“Some kind of a fish thing. Or a shrimp, not sure,” She was having trouble keeping on top of their curiosity.

 

“A fish! Scampi sounds like it should have lots of little legs though. Like... hmm... what do you think, Tomas?”

 

“A dog?”

 

“No! Idiot! Maybe like a monkey.”

 

“Idiot yourself calling a fish a monkey. Cocktails do come in different colours a bit like roosters tails. Maybe that’s it?”

 

“Bi-Han, do you want some of this monkey to eat?” Kuai leaned back on his stool again and almost fell off. He grabbed the bar surface just in time to stop his chair from tipping.

 

“He means fish.” Tomas called, “Fried fish balls.” Tomas put a hand to his lips to contain a giggle.

 

The woman rolled her eyes. Kuai frowned in confusion.

 

“Don’t bother me.” Bi-Han’s hand snaked out from behind the paper to rifle through the peanuts.

 

Kuai turned back round,

 

“I’d like some of these scampies, please.”

 

The woman at the bar nodded and made a note on some paper,

 

“Do you want them fried or left to run around your plate?”

 

Kuai’s mouth dropped open. Tomas snorted into his cocktail and drink went up his nose. He spluttered helplessly whilst Kuai exclaimed in frustration at his own naivety. As Tomas tried to recover from his inelegant fit his eye caught a silent television screen bolted onto the brick wall. A red bar was scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

 

_Breaking News: Top Serbian official Ranu Kasun wanted for charges of alleged genocide during Bosnian War found dead in ditch outside Belgrade._

 

Tomas glanced at Bi-Han. The assassin had let the newspaper drop to the table as he watched the screen. His eyes met Tomas’s and he nodded.

 

Tomas put a hand on Kuai’s shoulder,

 

“Scampi’s going to have to wait til another time, we’ve got to head home.”

 

Kuai frowned at him, and looked to his brother for confirmation. He sighed and finished up his fruit juices.

 

There was quiet as they walked. The only sounds were the wind shifting the trees and making their clothes snap and the crunch of their footsteps in shallow snow. The landscape was steep and bleak and monochrome. An empty blue sky arched in the gaps of severe white mountain peaks and coils of half wrapped mist and cloud. The sun was tilting into late afternoon. Blue shadows creased into rises hidden by snow. The still world was only broken by sharp black rocks too stubborn for snow to cling to. They had been walking in silence since leaving behind the village their bus stopped at. There had been a gradual sobering of communication since they first boarded the plane to Beijing. Now that they were nearly at the front steps of the Temple all was perfect quiet.

 

The Lin Kuei Temple reared sheer grey stone out of a dour white mountain side. It’s buttress gates and crenellated walls that had hidden the world from its occupants for all their young life stood open now and beckoned to them. Tomas felt himself conscious of his civilian clothes and tousled appearance. He looked sidelong at the cryomancer brothers but both their faces were pictures of serenity and absent of all emotion. He sighed inside himself and squared up for the return.

 

The wind at the gates was bitter despite the summer month. The Grandmaster’s banner cracked and whipped in the cold air. The stacked curled roofs of the Temple towered before them as they passed under the watchful eyes of ornate guardians carved into the stone gate pillars. The open training ground was skittering with semi settled snow. Across it came a figure clad in red flanked by a number assassins in functional black training garb.

 

Sektor had his mask off and his hair tied up so that it fanned out like one of the Grandmaster’s flags. He stopped before Bi-Han and the two placed fist to palm and bowed stiffly to one another. Tomas and Kuai hurriedly followed suit.

 

“And here we thought only Sub-Zero’s luggage would be returning from that mission.” A sarcastic smile spread unpleasantly across Sektor’s face.

 

“My thanks for overseeing the matter and fetching my belongings, Sektor, you make a good courier.”

 

“Not a problem. Always here to pick up the pieces when you go wrong.”

 

“I’m glad there’s someone sweeping up behind me.”

 

“Ready to step up and take up the slack whenever you stumble.”

 

Tomas watched as the two assassins faced off in body language whilst trading insults only thinly veiled as niceties.

 

“The Grandmaster expects a report.” Sektor switched tone once he was sure he had finished up on top of the exchange.

 

“Naturally.” Bi-Han gestured toward the dorms lining the training ground, “We will make ourselves presentable then head straight there.”

 

The two locked eyes. Twists of snow wandered on the cutting wind. The sky above showed only dull grey with new clouds pulling in.

 

“I do hope all is in order, Sub-Zero. I would hate for there to be loose ends that needed tidying up on this mission that you, personally, oversaw. I suppose you have a lot riding on this. You seem to be putting a lot of faith in...” Sektor’s eyes flicked over Tomas and Kuai, “... more junior members of the Lin Kuei.”

 

“I’m not in the habit dealing out my trust wantonly, as you perhaps know, Sektor?” Tomas swallowed as the Grandmaster’s son narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. Bi-Han made a careless gesture with his hand, “Tundra and Smoke have performed adequately, I think all will find. Your concern has been noted. I must thank you for keeping such a close watch on all my _personal_ assignments.”

 

There was another cold silence. Tomas wondered how much of that cold was just coming off Bi-Han and Kuai.

 

Eventually Sektor twisted his lips into a thin grimace that looked like it was trying to conceal all his rivalry and hatred. Tomas did not find the effect very convincing.

 

“I’ll inform the Grandmaster that you will be along shortly.” Sektor said with curt politeness. The two exchanged another stiff bow and went their separate ways.

 

The snow crunched underfoot again. The wind blew a chill down Tomas’ spine. His fingers had gone numb an hour ago as they were walking. All his warmer clothes had been in his bag and only the shirt he had was the one warn in St Petersberg in the humid mid-thirties. He knew his cheeks were pink and his nose bright red. The brothers seemed not to feel the cold at all. He followed them across the yard until Bi-Han stopped. Their quarters were straight ahead; his was off to the right round a corner and nested under the shadows of the Temple eaves.

 

“Meet us back here in half an hour, Vrbada.”

 

Tomas bowed. It somehow seemed like the right protocol now that they were back here again. He started walking towards his own room. He turned back once, watching as the brothers continued on together. He chewed slightly on his lower lip, then walked on.

 

The stone quarters were just as he had left them. His sleeping mat was rolled up in one corner. A low chest under a small square window held all he owned. All except his pendant. He unhooked it from his neck and felt for the loose stone in the window sill. A man with open arms was carved into the silver with the words _Jerome Emiliani_ set about the edge. He did not even know who the man was meant to be, but that did not matter. All that mattered was that he was not meant to keep it. The Lin Kuei were very particular about personal possessions. All one had was what was given by the Temple. Nothing else was permitted. Especially not superstitious pendants from old lives before recruitment.

 

He set the necklace into its hiding places and wiggled the stone back into the sill.

 

He saw his large canvass bag had been left near the door. He pulled off his shirt and tossed it onto the stone floor. He began rooting around for his best uniform. It was creased from all the travelling. He tried to brushed it down and held it up to the dim light coming faint through the window. Familiar wriggles of concern pressed in his stomach. He went to the wooden chest and flung it open, looking for something respectable to wear for the report. His second best uniform was folded neatly within. He decided on this one and put it on quickly. He had considered showering, but was worried he would lose track of time and miss his rendezvous with the cryomancers. He had washed after in the hotel in London after sleeping nearly the entire day, that would have to do.

 

He found himself ready, early, and pacing in his room. The bare stone and low roof felt oppressive. Anxiety was heavy in his lungs. Something else was eating at the back of his throat. Something like loneliness. It had been two weeks since he had last been in total solitude like this. He found himself missing Kuai’s aimless observations and bizarre questions about some snatch of culture he’d never come across before. Tomas wrung his hands and paced back and forth.

 

He abruptly left the room and slammed the door behind him. He picked his way through new snow to the brothers’ quarters.

 

He rapped on the door with his knuckles.

 

“It’s Smoke.”

 

“Come in.”

 

Kuai was alone in the room rubbing his hair dry with a towel and his uniform half on. Tomas glanced around.

 

“Bi-Han is washing.” Kuai supplied.

 

Tomas nodded and sat down near the door. The metal plates of his Lin Kuei uniform clinked together as he did. The brothers’ room somehow seemed more homely. It was as sparse as his, but looked less empty with the two of them sharing the space. They had shared this small space since before Tomas even joined the Lin Kuei. For as long as he could remember, he had been coming to this room, sitting by this door, and stealing snippets of the feeling of family these quarters held. Kuai knelt next to his own wooden chest and begun rifling through it.

 

“You’re going to stick to the story, right, Kuai? Can we have some warning if you’re planning on taking on the Grandmaster in some great ethical war.” Tomas leaned his head back against the wall.

 

Kuai raised an eyebrow,

 

“I’ll stick to the story.” He sounded melancholy.

 

“We’re not going to have any problems with...” Tomas hesitated, glancing around the room just to be sure. He was about to speak when he thought better of it. He got up, opened the door, checked there was no one there, shut the door, and sat back down again. “We’re not going to have any problems with the woman you left alive on the train, are we?” He whispered, “She could compromise you’re identity and the Lin Kuei...”

 

“No.” Kuai said quietly, “She won’t be a problem. She believes in giving hopeless people second chances.”

 

“How can you kn-”

 

“What about the man who saw me on the evening of the assassination? The one I had to tell I was going to a party.”

 

Tomas’ heart sunk. He had hoped Kuai had forgotten about that.

 

“That won’t be a problem either.”

 

Kuai looked straight at him. Tomas felt his inside curl in shame.

 

“Did Bi-Han kill him?”

 

“No... He... He ordered me to, Kuai. I did it on our way back, after we left you to kill Kasun. It didn’t take long. It was painless. I made it look like and accident.” The excuses did not seem fill the emptiness that had entered Kuai’s eyes. “...Anyway Kuai, you don’t have to talk about any of that. All you need to do is report on the assassination itself, Bi-Han and I will handle everything else. You _will_ stick to what we planned, won’t you?”

 

Kuai was very quiet.

 

Tomas looked at him,

 

“You said... you said killing Kasun wouldn’t weigh too heavily on you,” he said carefully, “You know... not like... the other deaths.”

 

Kuai unfolded a brilliant azure tunic and inspected the silver finish on its ornate plates.

 

“I did say that, didn’t I.” Now he sounded slow and casual.

 

Tomas felt unease creep through him. Kuai looked up, ever able to read Tomas’ discomfort. He sighed and looked back at his uniform.

 

“I met the man who hired us.”

 

Tomas’ jaw dropped.

 

“You... for the _mission_ , you mean?!”

 

He had never heard of anyone at the Temple ever meeting a client before.

 

“Mm hm,” Kuai nodded. He stood and began to dress.

 

“What... what happened?!”

 

“Nothing much. But I realised, Kasun wasn’t being assassinated because he’d done terrible things. He was being assassinated because he was a problem. And our client wasn’t bothered by what Kasun had done, he was just worried about his job and his country. He was doing what had to be done for the people he owed loyalty too, even if they did not know it. He told me there were worse people than us, and worse crimes.”

 

Tomas was trying to work out exactly which way these revelations would swing Kuai’s mood for the upcoming meeting.

 

“And... that... leaves you feeling less... concerned about those who had to die?”

 

“No.”

 

Kuai fixed the belt about his middle and the folds of the blue tunic straight, ensuring the silver emblems of the Lin Kuei were fixed properly on his chest.

 

“It made me realise there are none who are deserving of what we bring. And that the world is full of people like us who bear joint responsibility for killing their brothers in the name of those they claim loyalty to. Everywhere there are Lin Kuei; organisations demanding absolute loyalty; everywhere there are victims who fall prey to their violence and striving for power; and everywhere there are those who do the deeds, dying a little inside each time they raise a knife. Kuai Liang, Alexei Zima, Ranu Kasun. We all did terrible things out of loyalty. We are one. I am them, and they are me.”

 

Tomas stared at him,

 

“Kuai, that’s not true, Kasun committed-”

 

“Genocide. Allegedly. What will be my body count when I am an older man than now, I wonder.”

 

“Kuai, don’t talk like that, you’re the most compassionate man I know, don’t compare yourself t-”

 

“You only know _assassins,_ Tomas _._ ” Kuai looked up as the door opened.

 

Bi-Han came in in full uniform. He went straight to his luggage bag without looking at the other two and reverently drew forth his mask. He tied it on and pulled up his hood. He breath expelled as a long sigh in cold mists through the vents. He stood and closed his eyes, relaxing into the severe uniform, laced up to his throat in ornate silver clasps. He looked down on Tomas and Kuai Liang.

 

“Ready?”

 

Tomas stood, plate metal all clinking again,

 

“Will it be alright, Bi-Han? Sektor sounded like he was out make this difficult for us.”

 

Bi-Han looked at him, his eyes glittered and Tomas was sure there was a smile under that mask.

 

“The report going to the Grandmaster is one of utter perfection, Tomas. That is all that matters. We will receive our mundane acknowledgements and then we shall leave. It is then that I shall reap my true reward: the look of humiliated frustration on Sektor’s face as he realises I have left him once again in the dust.” Bi-Han opened the door and a smattering of snow swept in, “You and Kuai have done well. Now come, the Grandmaster is waiting.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With love to Zetsu, to whom I owe suave peanut Bi-Han aesthetic. 
> 
> Jerome Emiliani is a Catholic patron saint of lost children.
> 
> Thank you all for your support and kind comments throughout this. It's been amazing to have to much support while working on this :)
> 
> The final chapter is also up and ready to read.


	31. Grandmaster

We were all dead within five years. We were were good assassins. Like all good assassins, we saw worlds we never could have dreamed of, and died deaths we never could have imagined.

 

“It’s going to be alright,” She smiles, and her voice is so genuine I almost believe her. She’s got a crooked khaki cap balanced on her head, well-muscled arms set on her hips, uncharacteristic kindness in her eyes and the start of a belly under her combat jacket. She gleams hope while the colours of evening settle around her.

 

I nod slightly.

 

“It’s done.” She grins again, “Everything’s done. We’ve won. We’ve won for sure this time, Sub-Zero.”

 

I smile weakly in the face of the name they’ve all forgotten was ever borrowed. But I know that missions never end. Every victory is short. The next task lines up and there are always deaths to be dealt.

 

“Jeez, does that guy ever lighten up? Cold to the bone that one.” Says her companion when he thinks I’m out of earshot. He pulls his sunglasses down out of his hair to shade against the glare of the snow. She interlocks her fingers with his and he calms. They walk away with the last of the light on their cheeks. She turns once as she leaves and gives me another smile. It catches me off guard and I do not have time to pretend to return it.

 

They believe they are leaving me here to rebuild. They leave me here with three names against which I used to rebel. Sub-Zero. Lin Kuei. Grandmaster. They are all me. I am all of these now. A god brought me back to fight his wars. They leave me here with this miracle and their hopes and their promises. And I am happy for them. When I look in their eyes I understand why what was done was done. I understand the hard choices made that the future may be brighter.

 

But there were no remains of my brother’s body to bury, when he was burned in flames. And I never had a chance to mourn Tomas. We died together, side by side, and when I came back, he was not there beside me. And the Lin Kuei: my home, my old enemies, my family... I do not even have their ashes to scatter. Amid the smoking ruin there was only wire and cold metal as we destroyed ourselves.

 

Ice never made me cold. Only death did. But even before Tomas... before Bi-Han... There was no one particular moment, I think. Each life I took, took a little of me with it. And those I loved took the rest with them. When I was younger, I had passion for things. Anger aflame inside me, alongside caution, and concern, and empathy, and so many other things that would do war over my better half.

 

It’s not all gone. There are moments when it returns to me. When I close the Temple door to the sound of my students going about their daily training, and brew chrysanthemums with water rested four minutes from boiling... When the sun hits the snow bright and white and comes in beaming through the window... I can see Tomas opposite me, with cream from a Czech dessert caught on his nose and that irreplaceable laughter in his eyes. Wherever had he been hiding that for all those years? And Bi-Han in the mist on a rooftop in Russia, embracing me in that awkward fashion, still trying to play it cool in front of a brother that worshipped his every move. And that strange last breakfast that made Tomas and I giggle, and the ridiculous paranoia of not knowing whether we were allowed a rasher of bacon. And sometimes I wonder which hotel staff member found a frozen air-conditioning unit under a bed. And other times I wonder if the boys who played football in the street were the sons of the men I killed, and if anyone loved the woman with red hair that blazed like the sun, or if Davor Kasun truly wished a monastic life and if he still lived now, whether it would have been an existence that renounced the past, and was forgiven, and at peace.

 

Then the light passes. And I must drink my tea before it goes cold. And the children to whom I give my life and share my knowledge, call for me to continue their training. Into Lin Kuei assassins.

 

Sometimes I still think of bookstores. Or the French woman in the business of peace. Or gardening. Bus journeys in Serbia in summer. The way Bi-Han would make it snow when he was angry. I suppose I do that now. Or the light Tomas could somehow inject into the darkest of days. I never quite managed to learn that from him.

 


End file.
